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THE YOUTHS' COMPANION SERIES 



THE 

SHIP OF STATE 



BY 

THOSE AT THE HELM 



GINN & COMPANY 

BOSTON . NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON 






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CSOPTRIGHT, 1903, BT 
PERRY MASON COMPANY 

25.11 



GINN & COMPANY • PRO- 
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

The Presidency ....... 3 

By Theodore Roosevelt, Now Presi- 
dent of the United States. 

The Life of a Senator 23 

By Henry Cabot Lodge, Senator from 
Massachusetts. 

The Life of a Congressman ... 43 

By Thomas B. Reed, Formerly Speaker 

of the House of Representatives. 

The Supreme Court of the United 
States 67 

By David J. Brewer, Associate Justice 
of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, 

How Jack Lives .93 

By John D. Long, Ex-Secretary of 

the Navy. 



iv Contents 

Page 

The Naval War College .... 123 
By John D. Long, Ex-Secretaiy of 

the Navy. 

How Our Soldiers are Fed . . . 151 

By William Gary Sanger, Assistant 
Secretary of War. 

How the Army is Clothed ... 171 
By General M. I. Ludington, Quar- 
termaster-General, U. S. A. 

Good Manners and Diplomacy . . 183 
By William R. Day, Ex-Secretary 
of State. 

How Foreign Treaties are Made . 201 
By Henry Cabot Lodge, Senator 
from Massachusetts. 

Uncle Sam's Law Business . . . 223 
By John K. Richards, Solicitor-Gen- 
eral of the United States. 

The American Post Office . . . 243 
By W. L. Wilson, Ex-Postmaster- 
General, 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing page 

Theodore Roosevelt 3 

The Senate Chamber 23 

The House of Representatives . . 43 

David J. Brewer 67 

John D. Long 93 

The Naval War College . . . .123 
Upper Deck of a Battleship . . .140 

A Field Cook- House 151 

East End of White House . . .183 

Henry Cabot Lodge 201 

Post- Office Department Building . 243 



THE PE/E^IDENCY 

BY THE.ODOR.E R^ O O 5 E V E L T 
^^Novt^ President of tAe United Sto-tesW 




Theodore Roosevelt 






THE PEESIDENCY 



BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

NOW PRESIDENT OF THE 
UNITED STATES 

THE President of the United States 
occupies a position of peculiar im- 
portance. In the whole world there is 
no other ruler, certainly no other ruler 
under free institutions, whose power com- 
pares with his. Of course a despotic 
king has even more, but no constitutional 

Note. The article, of which this chapter is a part, 
was written expressly for The Youth's Companion by Mr. 
Roosevelt in 1900, while he was Governor of New York, 
and previous to the Republican National Convention, which 
nominated him for Vice-President. It will be clear to all 
readers that the writer of the article could not have fore- 
seen the place he was destined to occupy, and the views 
expressed are not to be regarded as those of an incumbent 
of the ofl&ce. 

[3] 



1 ii lO ii.. ?^^ T'^^^dency 

monarch has as much. In England the 
sovereign has much less control in shap- 
ing the policy of the nation, the prime 
minister occupying a position more nearly 
analogous to that of our President. The 
prime minister, however, can at any time 
be thrown out of office by an adverse 
vote, while the President can only be 
removed before his term is out for some 
extraordinary crime or misdemeanor 
against the nation. Of course, in the 
case of each there is the enormous per- 
sonal factor of the incumbent himself to 
be considered entirely apart from the 
power of the office itself The power 
wielded by Andrew Jackson was out 
of all proportion to that wielded by 
Buchanan, although in theory each was 
alike. So a strong President may exert 
infinitely more influence than a weak 
prime minister, or vice versa. But this is 
merely another way of stating that in any 
office the personal equation is always of 
vital consequence. 

[4] 



By Theodore Roosevelt 

It is customary to speak of the framers 
of our Constitution as having separated 
the judicial, the legislative, and the exec- 
utive functions of the government. The 
separation, however, is not in all respects 
sharply defined. The President has cer- 
tainly most important legislative func- 
tions, and the upper branch of the national 
legislature shares with the President one 
of the most important of his executive 
functions ; that is, the President can 
either sign or veto the bills passed by 
Congress, while on the other hand the 
Senate confirms or rejects his nomina- 
tions. Of course the President cannot 
initiate legislation, although he can 
recommend it. But unless two- thirds of 
Congress in both branches are hostile to 
him, he can stop any measure from be- 
coming a law. This power is varyingly 
used by different Presidents, but it 
always exists, and must always be reck- 
oned with by Congress. 

While Congress is in session, if the 
[5] 



The Presidency 

President neither signs nor vetoes a bill 
which is passed, the bill becomes a law 
without his signature. The effect is pre- 
cisely the same as if he had signed it. 
Presidents who disapproved of details in 
a bill, but felt that on the whole it was 
advisable it should become a law, have at 
times used this method to emphasize the 
fact that they were not satisfied with the 
measure which they were yet unwilling 
to veto. A notable instance was afforded 
in President Cleveland's term, when he 
thus treated the Wilson-Gorman tariff 
bill. 

The immense federal service, including 
all the postal employes, all the customs 
employes, all the Indian agents, marshals, 
district attorneys, navy-yard employes, 
and so forth, is under the President. It 
would of course be a physical impossibil- 
ity for him to appoint all the individuals 
in the service. His direct power lies 
over the heads of the departments, 
bureaus, and more important offices. 
[6] 



By Theodore Roosevelt 

But he does not appoint these by him- 
self. His is only the nominating power. 
It rests with the Senate to confirm or 
reject the nominations. 

The Senators are the constitutional 
advisers of the President, for it must be 
remembered that his Cabinet is not in 
the least like the cabinet of which the 
prime minister is head in the English 
Parliament. Under our government the 
Secretaries who form the Cabinet are in 
the strictest sense the President's own 
ministerial appointees ; the men, chosen 
out of all the nation, to whom he thinks 
he can best depute the most important 
and laborious of his executive duties. 
Of course they all advise him on matters 
of general policy when he so desires it, 
and in practice each Cabinet officer has a 
very free hand in managing his own de- 
partment, and must have it if he is to do 
good work. But all this advice and con- 
sultation is at the will of the President. 
With the Senate, on the other hand, the 

cn 



The Presidency 

advice and consultation are obligatory 
under the Constitution. 

The President and Congress are mutu- 
ally necessary to one another in matters 
of legislation, and the President and the 
Senate are mutually necessary in matters 
of appointment. Every now and then 
men who understand our Constitution 
but imperfectly raise an outcry against 
the President for consulting the Senators 
in matters of appointment, and even talk 
about the Senators '' usurping " his func- 
tions. These men labor under a mis- 
apprehension. The Senate has no right 
to dictate to the President who shall be 
appointed, but they have an entire right 
to say who shall not be appointed, for 
under the Constitution this has been 
made their duty. In practice, under our 
party system, it has come to be recog- 
nized that each Senator has a special 
right to be consulted about the appoint- 
ments in his own State, if he is of the 
President's political party. Often the 
[8] 



JBz/ Theodore Roosevelt 

opponents of the Senator in his State do 
not agree with him in the matter of 
appointments, and sometimes the Presi- 
dent in the exercise of his judgment finds 
it right and desirable to disregard the 
Senator. But the President and the 
Senators must work together if they 
desire to secure the best results. But 
although many men must share with the 
President the responsibility for different 
individual actions, and although Con- 
gress must of course also very largely 
condition his usefulness, yet the fact 
remains that in his hands is infinitely 
more power than in the hands of any 
other man in our country during the time 
that he holds the office ; that there is 
upon him always a heavy burden of 
responsibility ; and that in certain crises 
this burden may become so great as to 
bear down any but the strongest and 
bravest man. 

In the aggregate, quite as much wrong 
is committed by improper denunciation 
[9] 



The Presidency 

of public servants who do well as by fail- 
ure to attack those who do ill. There is 
every reason why the President, whoever 
he may be and to whatever party he may 
belong, should be held to a sharp account- 
ability alike for what he does and for 
what he leaves undone. But we injure 
ourselves and the nation if we fail to treat 
with proper respect the man, whether he 
is politically opposed to us or not, who in 
the highest office in our land is striving 
to do his duty according to the strength 
that is in him. 

We have had Presidents who have 
acted very weakly or unwisely in particu- 
lar crises. We have had Presidents the 
sum of whose work has not been to the 
advantage of the republic. But we have 
never had one concerning whose personal 
integrity there was so much as a shadow 
of a suspicion, or who has not been ani- 
mated by an earnest desire to do the best 
possible work that he could for the people 
at large. Of course, infirmity of purpose 
[10] 



By Theodore Roosevelt 

or wrong-headedness may mar this integ- 
rity and sincerity of intention; but the 
integrity and the good intentions have al- 
ways existed. We have never hitherto had 
in the presidential chair any man who did 
not sincerely desire to benefit the people, 
and whose own personal ambitions were 
not entirely honorable, although as much 
cannot be said for certain aspirants for the 
place, such as Aaron Burr. 

Corruption, in the gross sense in which 
the word is used in ordinary conversation, 
has been absolutely unknown among our 
Presidents, and it has been exceedingly 
rare in our Presidents' Cabinets. In- 
efficiency, whether due to lack of will- 
power, sheer deficiency in wisdom, or 
improper yielding either to the pressure 
of politicians or to the other kinds of 
pressure which must often be found even 
in a free democracy, has been far less un- 
common. Of deliberate moral obliquity 
there has been but very little indeed. 

In the easiest, quietest, most peaceful 

[11] 



The Presidency 

times the President is sure to have great 
tasks before him. The simple question of 
revenue and expenditure is as important to 
the nation as it is to the average household, 
and the President is the man to whom 
the nation looks, and whom it holds ac- 
countable in the matter both of expendi- 
ture and of revenue. 

It is a good deal the same thing in the 
nation as it is in a State. The demand 
may be for a consumptive hospital, or for 
pensions to veterans, or for a public build- 
ing, or for an armory, or for cleaning out 
a harbor, or for starting irrigation. In 
each case the demand may be in itself 
entirely proper, and those interested in it, 
from whatever motives, may be both 
sincere and strenuous in their advocacy. 
But the President has to do on a large 
scale what every governor of a State has 
to do on a small scale, — that is, balance 
the demands on the treasury with the 
capacities of the treasury. Whichever 
way he decides, some people are sure to 
[12] 



By Theodore Roosevelt 

think that he has tipped the scale the 
wrong way, and from their point of view 
they may conscientiously think it ; where- 
as from his point of view he may know 
with equal conscientiousness that he has 
done his best to strike an average which 
would on the one hand not be niggardly 
toward worthy objects, and on the other 
would not lay too heavy a burden of taxa- 
tion upon the people. 

Inasmuch as these particular questions 
have to be met every year in connection 
with every session of Congress and with 
the work of every department, it may 
readily be seen that even the President's 
every-day responsibilities are of no light 
order. So it is with his appointments. 
Entirely apart from the fact that there is 
a great pressure for place, it is also the 
fact that in all the higher and more im- 
portant appointments there are usually 
conflicting interests which must somehow 
be reconciled to the best of the Presi- 
dent's capacity. 

[13] 



The Presidency 

Here again it must be remembered that 
the matter is not always by any means 
one of merely what we call politics. 
Where there is a really serious conflict in 
reference to an appointment, while it may 
be merely a factional fight, it is more apt 
to be because two groups of the Presi- 
dent's supporters differ radically and hon- 
estly on some question of policy; so that 
whatever the President's decision may 
be, he cannot help arousing dissatisfac- 
tion. 

One thing to be remembered is that 
appointments and policies which are nor- 
mally routine and unimportant may 
suddenly become of absolutely vital con- 
sequence. For instance, the War De- 
partment was utterly neglected for over 
thirty years after the Civil War. This 
neglect was due less to the successive 
Presidents than to Congress, and in Con- 
gress it was due to the fact that the 
people themselves did not take an interest 
in the army. Neither the regular officer 
[14] 



By Theodore Roosevelt 

nor the regular soldier takes any part in 
politics as a rule, so that the demagogue 
and the bread-and-butter politician have 
no fear of his vote ; and to both of them, 
and also to the cheap sensational news- 
paper, the army offers a favorite subject 
for attack. So it often happens that 
some amiable people really get a little 
afraid of the army, and have some idea 
that it may be used some time or other 
against our liberties. 

The army never has been, and I am 
sure it never will be or can be, a menace 
to anybody save America's foes, or aught 
but a source of pride to every good and 
far-sighted American. But it is only in 
time of actual danger that such facts are 
brought home vividly to the minds of our 
people, and so the army is apt to receive 
far less than its proper share of attention. 
But when an emergency like that caused 
by the Spanish War arises, then the 
Secretary of War becomes the most im- 
portant officer in the Cabinet, and the 
[1^ 



The Presidency 

army steps into the place of foremost in- 
terest in all the country. 

It is only once in a generation that 
such a crisis as the Spanish War or the 
Mexican War or the War of 1812 has to 
be confronted, but in almost every ad- 
ministration lesser crises do arise. They 
may be in connection with foreign affairs, 
as was the case with the Chilean trouble 
under President Harrison's administra- 
tion, the Venezuelan matter in President 
Cleveland's second term, or the Boxer 
uprising in China. Much more often 
they relate to domestic affairs, as in the 
case of a disastrous panic, which produces 
terrible social and industrial convulsions. 
Whatever the problem may be, the Presi- 
dent has got to meet it and to work out 
some kind of a solution. In midwinter 
or midsummer, with Congress sitting or 
absent, the President has always to be 
ready to devote every waking hour to 
some anxious, worrying, harassing mat- 
ter most difficult to decide, and yet 
[16] 



By Theodore Roosevelt 

which it is imperative immediately to 
decide. 

An immense addition to the President's 
burden is caused by the entirely well- 
meaning people who ask him to do what 
he cannot possibly do. For the first few 
weeks after the inauguration a new Presi- 
dent may receive on an average fifteen 
hundred letters a day. His mail is so 
enormous that often he cannot read one 
letter in a hundred, and rarely can he read 
one letter in ten. Even his private secre- 
tary can read only a small fraction of the 
mail. Often there are letters which the 
President would really be glad to see, but 
which are swamped in the great mass of 
demands for office, demands for pensions, 
notes of warning or advice, demands for 
charity, and requests of every conceivable 
character, not to speak of the letters from 
*' cranks," which are always numerous in 
the President's mail. 

Perhaps the two most striking things 
in the presidency are the immense power 
[17] 



The Presidency 

of the President, in the first place ; and in 
the second place, the fact that as soon as 
he has ceased being President he goes 
right back into the body of the people 
and becomes just like any other Ameri- 
can citizen. While he is in office, he is 
one of the half-dozen persons throughout 
the whole world who have most power to 
affect the destinies of the world. 

He can set fleets and armies in motion ; 
he can do more than any, save one or two 
absolute sovereigns, to affect the domes- 
tic welfare and happiness of scores of mil- 
hons of people. Then when he goes out 
of office, he takes up his regular round of 
duties like any other citizen, or if he is of 
advanced age, retires from active life 
like any other man who has worked 
hard to earn his rest. 

One President, John Quincy Adams, 
after leaving the presidency, again entered 
public life as a Congressman, and achieved 
conspicuous successes in the Lower House. 
This, however, is a unique case. Many 
[18] 



By Theodore Roosevelt 

Presidents have followed the examples of 
Jefferson and Jackson, and retired, as 
these two men retired to Monticello and 
The Hermitage. Others have gone into 
more or less active work, as practicing 
lawyers or as lecturers on law, or in busi- 
ness, or in some form of philanthropy. 

Altogether, there are few harder tasks 
than that of filling well and ably the 
office of President of the United States. 
The labor is immense, the ceaseless worry 
and harassing anxiety are beyond descrip- 
tion. But if the man at the close of his 
term is able to feel that he has done his 
duty well, that he has solved after the 
best fashion of which they were capable 
the great problems with which he was 
confronted, and has kept clean and in 
good running order the governmental 
machinery of the mighty republic, he has 
the satisfaction of feeling that he has per- 
formed one of the great world tasks, and 
that the mere performance is in itself the 
greatest of all possible rewards. 
[19] 




THE IIBE OF A SENATOR 

By Honry CaDot Dod^c 

Senator Prom Massacbusofts 





The Senate Chamber 
(With portrait of the late Senator M. A. Hanna) 



THE LIFE OF A SENATOE 

BY HENRY CABOT LODGE, 

SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS 

IT used to be said that every intelligent 
American boy expected to be Presi- 
dent of the United States, and perhaps 
some of them hope to fill the less exalted 
office of Senator. Such ambitions are 
wholesome, and the boys who cherish 
them are very apt to grow up to be good 
citizens and perform the highest duty of 
a citizen, which is to take a thoughtful, 
active, conscientious interest in the public 
affairs of his country. 

Whether these hopes of great political 
distinction are or are not as common 
as they are supposed to be, it is cer- 
[23] 



The Life of a Senator 

tain that American boys ought to know 
about the government of their country 
and the manner in which it is carried 
on. Probably for this reason I have been 
asked to write about the hfe of a Senator. 
In so doing I desire, if I can, to give 
some idea of what the daily life of a Sena- 
tor really is. 

I could tell stories of the Senate and 
of the famous men who have been there, 
and of the historic scenes in which they 
have taken part. But these things are 
all written down in many books, and 
although they are very interesting, they 
tell what is exceptional and do not 
describe the everyday life and work of a 
Senator, which, although less exciting, 
is what after all you need to understand. 

Let me begin by telling you very briefly 
what the Senate is. It is the upper 
branch of Congress and one of the most 
important of all the branches of the gov- 
ernment. No one can be a Senator 
before he is thirty years old, and the 
[24] 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

average age of members of the Senate is 
about fifty-nine years. 

Each State is represented by two Sena- 
tors, and as there are now forty-five 
States, there are ninety Senators. The 
constitution provides that no State shall, 
without its consent, be deprived of its 
equal suffrage in the Senate. In this 
way the Senate is so strongly guarded 
that nothing can change it, except what 
would amount to an almost complete 
revolution in our existing form of gov- 
ernment. 

The powers of the Senate are very 
large — larger than those of any other 
upper chamber in any representative gov- 
ernment. The Senate, of course, shares 
with the House all the work of law-mak- 
ing, for no measure can become a law 
without the assent of both Houses. In 
addition to this the Senate has certain 
executive functions, which it shares with 
the President. 

The President has the power to make 
[25] 



The Life of a Senator 

treaties with foreign nations, but the 
treaties he makes cannot be finally agreed 
to or become the law of the land until 
they have been ratified by a two-thirds 
majority in the Senate. 

In addition to this important part in 
the treaty-making power, the Senate 
passes upon the appointments of all im- 
portant officers of the government, such as 
judges, ambassadors, ministers, collectors 
of customs and of revenue, and post- 
masters. None of these officers can be 
commissioned until the Senate has agreed 
to it, and if the Senate rejects any one 
whom the President has nominated, the 
person so rejected cannot have the office. 
From this it will be seen that a Senator 
has many grave duties and responsibilities. 
He is elected for a long term of six years, 
and he shares with his colleague the work 
of representing a constituency which is 
the entire population of a State, generally 
ranging from one million to six million 
people. Under these circumstances the 
[26] 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

life of a Senator, if he attends to his pub- 
lic duties, is a very busy one, and leaves 
him little time for anything else. 

I will try now to give an idea of what 
that life is by telling the story of the 
occupations of a day — not an excep- 
tional one, but the average day of a 
United States Senator. 

Before a Senator leaves his house in 
the morning two or three people are likely 
to come to see him, and the people who 
come at this hour are generally those who 
desire his aid in getting an office, or for 
some other object personal to themselves. 

If a Senator is wise he will make a rule 
not to see people at his house, but will 
insist that they shall call upon him at the 
Capitol, when he can see them either in 
the reception-room or in his own com- 
mittee-room. This rule has the advan- 
tage of giving a Senator an opportunity 
to eat his breakfast in peace. 

Immediately after breakfast he goes to 
the Capitol and looks over his morning 
[27] 



The Life of a Senator 

mail. Heading the mail is something 
which sounds very simple, but really con- 
sumes a great deal of time. The num- 
ber of letters received by Senators varies 
a gopd deal on account of the differences 
in the population of the various States, 
but in all cases it makes a large part of 
the day's work. In my own case thirty 
to forty letters will about make the aver- 
age of a day's mail, and it is often much 
larger than this when some measure like 
the tariff, in which many people are inter- 
ested, is pending in the Senate. 

The letters a Senator receives are on 
all sorts of subjects. People write asking 
for public documents, for information as 
to pension j^laims and patents, as to bills 
before Congress, and what Congress is 
likely to do on certain measures. 

In addition to these many inquiries as 
to business of a public character, a Sena- 
tor or Member of the House receives 
numerous letters approving or criticis- 
ing his votes or speeches and advising 
[28] 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

him as to what ought to be done by 
Congress. 

Then there are the people who want 
autographs and stamps, or money for 
private or pubhc charity. 

The anonymous letter writers are the 
most easily disposed of, for their cowardly 
letters are usually abusive, and the rule 
is to put an unsigned letter into the 
wastebasket unread. All other letters, 
however, require an answer, and are en- 
titled to an immediate reply. Now the 
work of reading thirty or forty letters 
every day, and dictating answers to them, 
takes a great deal of time and thought, 
and fills up all the minutes which are not 
otherwise occupied. 

A Senator, after disposing of his morn- 
ing mail, is obliged to go to the meetings 
of the various committees of which he 
is a member. The Senate committees 
generally meet at half-past ten or eleven 
o'clock and sit until the session of the 
Senate begins at noon. Some of the 
[29] 



The Life of a Senator 

committees seldom meet and have but 
little to do, but most of them meet once 
or twice a week and have a great deal of 
important business to dispose of. As 
every Senator is a member of five or six 
committees, his mornings are pretty well 
taken up. 

At twelve o'clock the Senate meets, 
and as a rule sits until five in the after- 
noon. At the beginning of a session the 
Senate sits for a much shorter time, and 
at the end for a much longer time, often 
until late in the evening and sometimes 
all night. But on an average the daily 
session lasts for five hours. 

The first two hours, from twelve to 
two, are called the morning hour, and are 
devoted to the introduction of petitions, 
bills and resolutions, the presentation of 
reports of committees, the transaction of 
business to which there is no objection, 
and the discussion of matters which have 
come over from the morning hour of the 
previous day, and have not yet been 
[30] 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

placed on the calendar or referred to a 
committee. 

At two o'clock the morning hour comes 
to an end, and the Senate proceeds to 
the consideration of what is called the 
unfinished business. In theory this should 
be the first matter on the calendar, but 
as a matter of fact the Senate hardly ever 
goes to the calendar, on which are placed 
in order the bills reported from com- 
mittees. The unfinished business is in- 
variably some bill or resolution which the 
Senate has voted to take up without re- 
gard to its place on the calendar and con- 
sider until it is disposed of. The mass of 
business is so great that only a very small 
part of it can be considered at all, and 
therefore it is necessary to select the bills 
which shall be taken up and debated and 
voted upon. 

The matters which have preference 

over all others, which in parliamentary 

language are known as privileged, have 

the right of way. The most important 

[31] 



The Life of a Senator 

are the appropriation bills, which provide 
for all the expenses of the government 
and which must be passed, because if 
they were not passed the government 
could not go on. Next to these come 
great measures upon which parties divide, 
such as those affecting the tariff or the 
currency. 

Whenever the Senate is occupied with 
any of these great bills for the appropria- 
tion of money, or for the tariff or the 
currency, or affecting our foreign rela- 
tions or our commerce, it is necessary 
for a Senator to be in his place in the 
Senate constantly, after the long speeches 
with which every debate begins are 
finished. 

These bills are read by clauses, and 
each clause may contain something of 
special importance to the interests or the 
industries of the State which the Senator 
represents, in addition to its general effects 
as a law which touches the welfare of the 
whole country. 

[32] 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

Thus it becomes necessary, when the 
regular work of the Senate has got fairly 
going, that a Senator should be constantly 
in the Capitol in order that he may be 
ready to vote and also take part in the 
discussion which is going on. Until a 
man has had a full experience at it, he 
does not realize what hard work it is to 
watch a great measure on its passage 
through the Senate, and to be constantly 
on the alert to see what amendments are 
proposed, and to be sure that nothing 
goes through to which he is opposed, and 
that nothing which he favors fails, with- 
out his being first heard in regard to it. 

In addition to this necessity for con- 
stant attention come the frequent calls 
from people who desire to see a Senator 
on business and who are entitled to see 
him. These visitors send in their cards, 
and the Senator is then obliged to leave 
the Senate chamber as soon as he can, and 
go into the marble room to talk with his 
callers. 

[33] 



The Life of a Senator 

I have been called out from the Senate 
from twenty to thirty times in an after- 
noon when a great bill was pending and 
I wished to hear the debate. Now this 
necessity of seeing many people on many 
different subjects, when one's mind is 
occupied by some great question, is work 
of a very fatiguing sort. 

In this w^ay the time passes in the 
Senate chamber, and at the close of the 
day's session the Senator is obliged to go 
to his committee-room and dispose of his 
afternoon's mail. Then he is at liberty 
to go home to dinner and have his evening 
to himself 

But it must be remembered that the 
regular work of every day, which I have 
described, does not include the prepara- 
tion which must be made for a speech. 
This generally involves a great deal of 
labor. So does due examination of the 
many matters which are assigned to 
Senators by their committees for investi- 
gation and report. All these things 
[34] 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

must be attended to, and if a Senator 
fulfills the regular duties which I have 
described, he will find that he has but 
little time for anything else. With the 
exception about which I shall speak pre- 
sently, all the work that I have mentioned 
properly belongs to the office and none of 
it ought to be neglected. 

The duty of a Member of Congress or 
a Senatoi: requires that he should not 
only attend to public questions in the 
Senate, — which must always come first, 
— but that he should also correspond 
with his constituents, furnish them with 
all the information and assistance that he 
can in regard to matters connected with 
the government business, and be ready to 
see them whenever they call upon him in 
regard to public questions, or as to bills 
or cases in the department which affect 
their interest. 

To do all this properly requires all the 
strength, ability, and time which a man 
can give, even with the constant assist- 
[35] 



The Life of a Senator 

ance of the private secretary allowed by 
the government to each Senator. 

But there is one point upon which a 
Senator ought to be relieved, and it is 
largely his own fault that he does not 
get relief This is the burden of the 
office-seeker. 

The evil is not so bad as it used to be. 
A large number of offices have been put 
under the civil service law, ajid are no 
longer the subject of patronage or favor- 
itism. But many still remain, and Sen- 
ators who are of the same party as the 
administration are pursued and worn out 
by people seeking their influence to secure 
some small government office. 

This is all wrong. Senators are chosen 
to look after the public business and to 
care for the interests of their constitu- 
ents. Their time and strength should be 
given to these things and not to getting 
an office for some one, the effect of which 
is a sacrifice of what belongs to the public 
for the benefit of an individual. 
[36] 



Sy Henry Cabot Lodge 

I have described in detail the occupa- 
tions of a Senator, because it seemed to 
me important to give a truthful view of 
what was required of a man who holds 
this important office and who faithfully 
discharges its duties. But there is an- 
other side to it which is much more attrac- 
tive, and upon which I wish to say a few 
words in conclusion. 

The Senate of the United States is a 
very important and distinguished body. 
I do not think there is any place in polit- 
ical life in any country which is more 
worthy of a man's ambition, or which 
gives greater opportunity for work of the 
most important kind, and for distinction 
of the sort best worth having. 

There has been of late a great deal of 
outcry against the Senate, and no one 
would deny that it has had, like all 
human things, periods of failure and of 
shortcoming. But the view which has 
lately been freely expressed — that the 
Senate has greatly declined — is one that 
[37] 



The Life of a Senator 

finds no support in history. It has always 
been attacked as it is attacked now. 

Read the diary of WiUiam Maclay, 
who was a Senator from Pennsylvania 
from 1789 to 1791, and you will find that 
he attacks the Senate as severely as any 
one does at the present day. And yet 
that was the first Senate of the United 
States. Its members were eminent men, 
whose names we are glad to recall, and 
who after the lapse of a hundred years 
everybody admits were worthy of their 
positions. 

No doubt there may have been selfish 
and possibly bad men in that first Senate, 
but we speak justly of the great body of 
those early Senators as statesmen who 
deserve to be held in honorable remem- 
brance. 

There have been periods when the 
Senate had two or three men of excep- 
tional brilliancy, and other periods when 
it did not have these exceptional exam- 
ples of ability and learning. But the 
[38] 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

average of character and ability in both 
Houses of Congress is, I beheve, higher 
to-day than ever, and I think has risen 
instead of decHning during the hundred 
years of our history. 

A seat in the Senate of the United 
States is a place worthy of the best am- 
bition of the best man, and is something 
for which any American may contend 
as for a great honor. In the House of 
Representatives and in the Senate alike, 
a man is called upon to take part in the 
government of a great nation, and to do 
his share toward shaping the greatest 
future open to any people on earth. 

Many of the most distinguished men 
in American history have made their 
name and fame in the Senate. 

From the Senate a man speaks not 
merely to his State but to the country, 
and if he speaks well and truthfully, ac- 
cording to his convictions, he will be lis- 
tened to. 

To have won such an opportunity to 
[39] 



The Life of a Senator 

take part in shaping the laws and direct- 
ing the poHcy of this great country, is to 
have gained something well worth win- 
ning. To hold a place in the United 
States Senate merely to have the plea- 
sure of being called a Senator is nothing ; 
to use worthily the great opportunity 
which it gives is everything, and any man 
may feel honored thus to devote his life 
to the public service. 



[40] 



The Life of a Congressman 

By Thomas B • Reed 

Formerly Spoaker of the House oF Representatives 




The House of Representatives 

(With portrait of Speaker J. G. Cannon) 



THE LIFE OF A CON- 
GEESSMAN 

BY THOMAS B. REED 

FORMERLY SPEAKER OF THE 
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

IN the Constitution of the United 
States the Senate and House of 
Representatives together are called " The 
Congress." Hence, in strictness, Sena- 
tors and Representatives are alike Mem- 
bers of Congress ; but in everyday 
language the name is given to Represen- 
tatives only, and they alone write M.C. 
after their names. It is the life of the 
Representatives only which I shall try to 
sketch, and of that life I can hope to 
give but the merest outline. 
[43] 



The Life of a Congressman 

It is a fact of almost universal applica- 
tion that we see the bright side of every 
other man's occupation, and seldom the 
dark side. The dark side of our own 
lives we clearly know, and we are quite 
as apt to exaggerate its blackness as we 
are to magnify the good another enjoys. 

Probably a great many young people 
think that the life of a Member of Con- 
gress, with five thousand dollars a year, 
is a life of pleasure, comfort, and luxury, 
full of power and dignity. If they do 
not, they have changed very much from 
the young people of my day. Of course 
they have changed in other ways, and 
much for the better, but probably not in 
this estimate of things. 

Of course the young people are right 
in a measure. It is an honorable duty to 
perform — that of representing a hundred 
and fifty or two hundred thousand people 
in their relations with the seventy millions 
of other people of a great nation, the 
prosperity of which may be affected by 
[44] 



By Thomas B. Reed 

the Representative's wisdom, either in 
giving good advice or following good 
advice given by others, either in acting 
or refusing to act. 

But the picture has some shadows as 
well as lights. A Congressman has labors 
to perform as well as position to enjoy, 
and as a man gets older he sets less and 
less value on place and position. 

The duties he has to perform are not 
by any means uniform. They depend 
upon the wants and needs, real or im- 
agined, of his district. All districts are 
not equally interested in things at Wash- 
ington. Some districts, especially those 
in the East and on the Atlantic coast 
outside of the great cities, have very 
little to do with the bureaus at Wash- 
ington. 

In the West, and especially in the 
newly settled States, the relations with 
the Interior Department, and particularly 
with the Land Office, are very close and 
very important to the individual constit- 
[45] 



The Life of a Congressman 

uent. To have a hundred letters a day, 
all relating to business before the depart- 
ments, is not an uncommon experience 
for a member from Kansas or Nebraska, 
for in those States all land titles come, or 
are to come, from the government; and 
many of them have to be finally adjudi- 
cated at Washington in case of dispute. 

All the members have much to do with 
pensions. They bring special cases to 
the notice of the bureau, and hasten de- 
cisions. Here, again, the Western mem- 
ber is much more harassed than we of the 
East, because so many of our soldiers, 
broadened by contact with brother sol- 
diers from all over the United States, 
were emboldened to try their fortunes 
in the frontier communities. 

So also the distribution of revenue 
raised by taxes among the rivers and har- 
bors, the Indians, the navy, agriculture, 
public buildings, and all other items of 
government expenditure make much cor- 
respondence and business for members. 
[46] 



By Thomas B. Reed 

In addition to these labors, it may be 
mentioned that any one of the one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand constituents is 
at perfect hberty to write his views on 
rehgion or finance to his member, and 
expects at least an acknowledgment. 
Luckily, nowadays, thanks to reform in 
the civil service, considerable time is saved 
which used to go to the service of those 
who wished to assist their country by 
holding its offices. 

The official duties may be more or less, 
according to the prominence of the mem- 
ber. Every new member, like a young 
lawyer or merchant newly come to town, 
has to show what there is in him and win 
his own way. Distinction won in other 
fields of endeavor will gain a man a hear- 
ing for the first time, but not afterward. 
If he wishes to talk and be listened to, 
he had better have something to say and 
know how to say it. 

Most men are not listened to. Most 
of the long speeches sent to constituents 
[47] 



The Life of a Congressman 

have no effect on the House, and might 
as well have been delivered in an attic or 
poured out into a fanning-machine. That 
they are delivered at all is largely owing 
to the strange mistake which our country 
has not got over — that a good member 
must be an orator. Now every man 
wants to be thought a good member; 
hence he speechifies in the Congressional 
Record. 

In early days, when there was little to 
do and members were few, no doubt 
the country owed much of its education 
to such speeches, but in these days, 
debate — that sort of speaking in which 
a man says only what he knows so well 
that he does not need to put it on paper 
— would seem to be a far more advan- 
tageous consumption of time. General 
education, such as it is, — and I do not 
undervalue it, — comes from newspapers 
and other sources. 

The early impression a new member 
gets when he Ustens for the first few 
[48] 



By Thomas B. Reed 

weeks, is that there are in the House an 
astonishing number of men who know 
how to talk well ; but after a while he 
sees the limitations of each man, and finds 
there are in the world but few Clays, 
Blaines, Schencks, and Garfields, who can 
talk well about many matters. 

Another thing which rather surprises 
the new member is that the vote does not 
seem to follow the argument. He does 
not comprehend that people who do not 
talk may think, and may not think to the 
same conclusion as those who talk. Nor 
does he comprehend the tremendous di- 
versity of interests in the House. He 
knows vaguely that this is a great coun- 
try ; indeed, he has frequently heard per- 
sons say so, and has said so himself; but 
he does not understand that a thousand 
miles of distance is a tremendous change 
of the point of view. 

If we could only make the intelligent 
men all over the country realize the sec- 
tional differences of opinion which our 
[49] 



The Life of a Congressman 

greatness occasions, the whole people 
would look with more reasonableness 
upon those who try to do what is feasible, 
and with less patience upon those whom 
only the whole earth in the way of legis- 
lation will content. 

The new member in his first term, and 
often long afterward, finds the rules a 
perpetual stumbling-stone and rock of 
offense. He wants to talk and to get his 
measures before the House, and some- 
how he never can. If he stops to reason 
about it, he will find himself again in con- 
tact with the greatness of the country. 

Three hundred and fifty- six members 
seem to be a large number to collect to- 
gether for purposes of deliberation, and 
numbers are a great hindrance to that de- 
liberation which means frequent speaking 
and voting. Many people wonder why 
each decade the number is increased in- 
stead of diminished; but the increase is 
likely to go on for some time in the future. 

Large as our number of members is, 
[50] 



By Thomas B, Beed 

Great Britain and France, with half our 
population, have each a great many more. 

Indeed, when you look at the constitu- 
ency, the wonder ceases. Each member 
of Congress represents one hundred and 
fifty thousand citizens, and in many dis- 
tricts two hundred thousand. The busi- 
ness which all these people have in 
Washington centers in the Congressman, 
and as I have already pointed out, it 
makes for him plenty of work. So great 
has this work become that by law each 
member has a clerk. Although the ex- 
pense to the nation is not trifling, and the 
assistance was voted with some fear and 
trembling on our part, there has not 
been, so far as I know, the slightest 
criticism of the act. 

Of what Congress does in the way of 
public acts, everybody has some idea. 
All great questions which agitate the 
nation come there for final settlement. 
Of course the settlement is always on 
some basis which the members think will 
[51] 



The Life of a Congressman 

satisfy all or most of the people. That 
often turns out to be a mistake, for 
people often think they want what they 
do not want at all, and they are always 
ready to punish legislators who give 
them the bad things they thought they 
wanted. 

Appropriation bills settle a good many 
Congressional questions. By them, for 
instance, our great lake commerce, fos- 
tered by improvements in rivers and har- 
bors, has been built up until it much 
surpasses the great foreign commerce 
which we have with the whole outside 
world; and what Madison and Munroe 
thought we could not constitutionally do 
at all, we do every session with the full 
agreement of both political parties. 

All these great questions, like the ex- 
ample just given, are known and noticed 
by many of the people. But one great 
business which Congress does passes with- 
out anybody's notice. Congress is the 
great and general court. All the com- 
[62] 



By Thomas B. Reed 

plaints, demands, and wishes of the people 
come to it. 

In the great majority of cases nothing 
is done, but of ten thousand proposed 
laws perhaps six per cent or less become 
law. So in a court of justice manj'' cases 
are brought, and but few tried. 

But the existence of a court where 
complaints can be made with a chance of 
redress is a great help to human life. Be- 
fore and after a man has brought his suit 
the fact that he can have even an unsuc- 
cessful hearing goes a great way toward 
calming his spirit. So in Congress, if a 
man can have a committee examine his 
case, even if no remedy is found, he be- 
comes more reconciled to the inevitable. 

Members of Congress, even when as- 
sembled in performance of their duties, 
do not always behave amiably. Some 
people think their behavior is growing 
worse, but it is not so. Such collisions 
as occasionally take place have always 
taken place, from the time when Griswold 
[53] 



The Life of a Congressman 

and Lyon encountered each other on the 
floor down to our day. They all happen 
in the same way : men get heated men- 
tally, and sometimes physically; then 
they are bad-tempered, they forget where 
they are, and they make spectacles of 
themselves. 

One of the worst scenes I ever saw in 
the House was only the culmination on a 
hot day in July of the bad temper of the 
hot months. A hundred degrees in the 
shade is the boiling point of men. 

Perhaps there never was a House that 
so lived on the edge of a volcano as did 
the House of the Forty-fifth Congress. 
Everybody was angry with everybody else. 
This was the Congress after President 
Hayes was elected, when everybody 
thought everybody else had been cheating, 
and nobody could strike because in strik- 
ing he must deliver his blow not only at 
his enemies, but at those with whom his 
reason taught him he would have to act 
in the future. Yet in that case there 
[54] 



By Thomas B. Reed 

were no rows, because everybody felt that 
we could not have one without having 
too big a one. 

It seems rather a misfortune that the 
nation has so little idea of what really 
goes on in Congress. There are no regu- 
lar reports in any of our papers which will 
enable even a student to acquire a knowl- 
edge of what goes on from day to day. 
Even a member home for a week can 
hardly make out what has happened. In 
London you know every day what Par- 
liament has done the day before. 

The difference is caused by two facts : 
England has but one center and that is 
London. We have New York, Boston, 
Chicago, San Francisco, New Orleans, 
and many others. Then we publish at 
public expense a journal of all we say and 
do, and make such a wastebasket of the 
Record that few people have the patience 
to look at it regularly. 

If we left the history of our doings to 
private enterprise, the public would insist 
[55] 



The Life of a Congressman 

upon and demand and obtain regular re- 
ports, condensed so as to be within the 
scope of human endeavor, which would 
be a good thing for both Congress and 
the country. As it is now, it is rather a 
forlorn territorial legislature which is not 
as well reported as the Congress of the 
United States. I speak, of course, of 
regular daily reports and not of special 
topics. 

All legislative bodies suffer in public 
estimation, because of the perpetual criti- 
cism to which they are obliged to submit 
without any chance or opportunity of 
reply. Hence the popular idea of such 
bodies is much lower than is just. 

A representative body has to do the 
best it can to reconcile with the terms of 
its proposed action all the prejudices of 
the whole people, and to take into account 
their wrong views as well as their right 
views. Hence it is that individual mem- 
bers seldom are able to vote anything 
more than that modification of their own 
[56] 



By Thomas B. Reed 

ideas which it is possible to enact. Of 
course this falls far short of the freedom 
of an editorial, or a sermon, or the speech 
of a reformer. 

Where things are done in the mind 
only, the best can always be done ; where 
things are done in a world full of conflicts 
and opposing opinions, results fall far 
short of the ideal best. 

That there are legislatures which are 
corrupt I hardly doubt, but that many of 
them are corrupt I do not believe. So 
far as the House of Representatives of 
the United States is concerned, I quite 
agreed with what Mr. Samuel J. Randall 
once said to me after twenty years of 
experience : "I believe I could name on 
the fingers of one hand all the men I sus- 
pect could be bribed. ' ' 

Of course all men are influenced by the 
opinions and power of other men, and a 
representative body is no exception. So 
also men like to represent the views of 
their people, for thereon depends the 
[57] 



The Life of a Congressman 

continuance of their official life. Of 
course a good many of them in times of 
excitement are deluded by mere volume 
of noise, and mistake stage thunder for 
the roar of heaven's artillery; but as a 
rule they are reasonably patriotic, and 
quite capable of being right when to be 
so is dangerous. 

If you will reflect a moment you will 
see that Members of Congress, from the 
nature of things, are, as a rule, men of 
standing in the communities in which 
they live. Something has caused each 
one of them to be prominent among the 
thirty or fifty thousand males over the 
age of twenty-one whom they represent. 
That something may not always be in- 
tellect. It certainly is not always riches, 
or birth, or control of great industrial 
enterprises. In any event each member 
has run the gauntlet of a nominating con- 
vention and of an election afterward. 

Probably each Congress is the peer of 
its predecessor in the relation which it 
[68] 



By Thomas B, Reed 

bears to the intelligence of the country. 
It is true that the growth in wealth and 
expenditure in this country has drafted 
into industrial and commercial enterprises 
many able men who have preferred riches 
to legislative work and its fame. Many 
of these men would in the earlier days 
have made politics a profession. 

But there is yet glamour enough sur- 
rounding public life, though it has been 
stripped of riches, to induce many able 
men to strive for its honors and endure 
its disadvantages. These men thus made 
Members of Congress, while they are, as 
a rule, men of standing, education, and 
ability, are limited by the wishes of their 
constituents and the general progress of 
the nation. 

In some of the large cities the congress- 
ional representation may and does partake 
of the degeneracy of municipal politics; 
but even there, men like Samuel J. Kan- 
dall, William D. Kelley, and S. S. Cox, 
to speak only of those dead, quite often 
[59] 



The Life of a Congressman 

come to the front and go far toward re- 
deeming their time. 

The appearance of the House of Rep- 
resentatives when assembled is not very 
much in its favor. It seems and is a 
tumultuous and disorderly collection of 
men, except on those rare occasions when 
a great debate culminates in the speeches 
of the foremost men. Then decorous 
silence reigns. The galleries cease whis- 
pering, and the members sit intent in their 
seats. 

It would be impossible that this should 
be so every day. Three hundred and fifty 
men with a hundred more of clerks, ex- 
members, and others, with noisy galleries 
above them, could not possibly keep still. 
For much of the bad order, however, the 
physical conditions are responsible. 

The hall of the House is siipply huge. 
The galleries alone can seat fifteen hun- 
dred people. In the gallery of the House 
of Commons there is not room for a hun- 
dred spectators. 

[60] 



By Thomas B, Reed 

In the House of Representatives it 
takes voice as well as intellect to be heard. 
Some of our best men cannot reach a 
third of the members. This is no small 
misfortune. It helps to render true de- 
bate difficult if not impossible. Men will 
strain their eyes a long time to see, but 
not their ears to hear. Hence conversa- 
tion and general restlessness spread over 
the scene. 

The size of the hall also precludes the 
use of needed space for the retiring rooms 
which would naturally attract members 
and reheve the House as they do the 
Senate. It is to be feared that taking 
the desks out would not be a remedy, 
since the great hall and the large galleries 
would remain. 

The members of the British House of 
Commons, approaching seven hundred in 
number, are lodged in a hall forty-five 
feet by seventy-five, and forty-one feet 
high. Our hall is ninety- three feet by 
one hundred and thirty-nine, and thirty- 
[61] 



The Life of a Congi^essman 

six feet high. To be heard by all present, 
a Member of Parliament has to cause to 
vibrate one hundred and thirty-eight 
thousand cubic feet of air, while a Mem- 
ber of Congress must set in motion four 
hundred and sixty-five thousand feet. 

The only real remedy would be to cut 
our hall into three parts, using the center 
hall for assembly, and the other two for 
work and reception rooms. The center 
hall would then be fifteen feet longer 
than the English hall, which has four 
hundred and seventeen seats. It is quite 
true that we should in that way lose 
the impressiveness of the vast hall, and 
it is an inspiring spectacle on the great 
days when silence reigns. But for every- 
day effect. Congress in a suitable hall 
would be much more pleasantly impres- 
sive than Congress in an acre lot. 

If the greatness of the hall was intended 

to reflect the greatness of the country, it 

signally fails, for the little republic of 

Venice, more than three hundred years 

[62] 



By Thomas JS, Reed 

ago, had and still has, a council hall one 
hundred and seventy- five and one half 
feet long, eighty-four and one half feet 
wide and fifty-one and one half feet high. 
This article is long already, and yet 
I must have another paragraph wherein 
to say that the Members of Congress 
on the whole, fairly represent the people 
whom they undertake to represent. If 
they are not all Solomons, either indi- 
vidually or collectively, their constituents 
are also not sons of David and Bathsheba. 
If you point to any radical overturns at 
any time in our history, and say that the 
rebuked men did not represent their con- 
stituents and were not up to their level, 
then I venture to suggest that the people 
themselves may not have known what 
they wanted until they had experienced 
the effects of what they mistakenly 
thought their legislators should give them. 



[63] 



Ttie Supreme Court of tficTTnlM States 

^y David J. Brewer 

Associate Justice oP the Supreme Court of the United States 



THE SUPREME COURT 
OF THE UNITED STATES 

BY DAVID J. BREWER 

ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT 
OF THE UNITED STATES 

THE Constitution of the United States, 
that instrument which Gladstone 
said is the most perfect document ever 
struck off by the hand of man at a single 
time, clearly states the powers vested in 
the Supreme Court ; but the effect which 
those powers were to have on the life of 
the republic became manifest only as they 
were exercised. 

Up to that time the judiciary was only 
a minor factor in the life of any nation. 
Even in the mother country, where alone 
its independence had been secured, its 
powers and influence were restricted by 
[67] 



The Supreme Court 

the fact that, there being no written con- 
stitution, the authority of Parhament 
was subject to no Hmitations. The sig- 
nificance of this tribunal in a nation, the 
powers of all whose officials are granted 
and defined by a written instrument, was 
not fully realized. 

Hence it is not strange that in the 
early life of the republic a place on the 
Supreme bench was considered of minor 
importance, and freely abandoned or 
declined for positions which all now con- 
sider of much less significance. John 
Jay, the first chief justice, resigned his 
office in order to enter upon diplomatic 
service; and when, subsequently, it was 
tendered to him again, declined to accept, 
preferring the place of governor of the 
State of New York. 

Few cases came before the court, and 
most of them of no national concern. 
Its significance began to dawn when it 
was perceived that it had power to 
adjudge void any act of an official, or 
[68] 



By David J. Brewer 

even a law passed by Congress, if found 
to be in conflict with the Constitution. 

A tribunal which, standing back of 
executive and legislative officials, could 
declare what they attempted to do to be 
of no effect, because in conflict with that 
organic instrument, was soon recognized 
as a factor of supreme importance in the 
nation. And that the Supreme Court was 
given this power by the Constitution was 
so clearly shown by Chief Justice Mar- 
shall, in his opinion in Marbury versus 
Madison, 1 Cranch, 137, that no one since 
has ever seriously challenged it. I quote 
a few sentences from that opinion : 

"The Constitution is either a superior 
paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary 
means, or it is on a level with ordinary 
legislative acts, and, hke other acts, is al- 
terable when the legislature shall please 
to alter it. 

*' If the former part of the alternative 

be true, then a legislative act contrary 

to the Constitution is not law: if the 

latter part be true, then written constitu- 

[69] 



The Supreme Court ■ 

tions are absurd attempts, on the part of 
the people, to hmit a power in its own 
nature iUimitable. 

* ' Certainly all those who have framed 
written constitutions contemplate them 
as forming the fundamental and para- 
mount law of the nation, and conse- 
quently the theory of every such gov- 
ernment must be, that an act of the 
legislature, repugnant to the constitution, 
is void. 

" This theory is essentially attached to 
a written constitution, and is consequently 
to be considered by this court as one of 
the fundamental principles of our society. 
It is emphatically the province and duty 
of the judicial department to say what 
the law is. Those who apply the rule to 
particular cases, must of necessity expound 
and interpret that rule. If two laws con- 
flict with each other, the courts must de- 
cide on the operation of each. 

*'So if a law be in opposition to the 
Constitution; if both the law and the 
Constitution apply to a particular case, 
so that the court must either decide that 
case conformably to the law, disregarding 
the Constitution, or conformably to the 

[70] 



By David J. Brewer 

Constitution, disregarding the law, the 
court must determine which of these con- 
flicting rules governs the case. This is 
of the essence of judicial duty. 

' ' If, then, the courts are to regard the 
Constitution, and the Constitution is su- 
perior to any ordinary act of the legis- 
lature, the Constitution, and not such 
ordinary act, must govern the case to 
which they both apply. ' ' 

Not long thereafter the question arose 
of jurisdiction over States and their courts, 
and again, Chief Justice Marshall's mas- 
terly logic established the fact that the 
Constitution delegated such power to the 
Supreme Court. Cohens versus Virginia 
will stand side by side with Marbury ver- 
sus Madison; the two cases which settled 
the now unquestioned power of the Su- 
preme Court to compel officers and tribu- 
nals, state and national, to conform their 
actions to the mandates of the Federal 
Constitution. 

Within the last decade cases have been 
decided by that court in which one State 
[71] 



The Supreme Court 

has contested with another the bound- 
aries of each; one in which the United 
States summoned the State of Texas 
to have determined whether an entire 
county claimed by the latter was or 
was not within its territory. And others 
of like importance are now pending be- 
fore it. 

It is not strange that, as the signifi- 
cance of its power became manifest, some 
who labor under the delusion that vox 
populi, no matter how often or how rap- 
idly changing, is vox Dei, should see in 
it something to threaten democracy, as 
they understand the term. Once in a 
while we hear noisy denunciations of the 
court as an incongruous factor in a gov- 
ernment hf the people. The fact that 
its members hold office during good be- 
havior, that it sometimes stays the hands 
of an excited public, is thought to inter- 
fere with the idea of a true popular 
government; and yet the general judg- 
ment of wise and thoughtful students 
[72] 



By David J, Brewer 

of political life and history the world 
over is that the stability of that court, 
arising from the permanent tenure of 
its members, is the one thing which gives 
promise of endurance to our democratic 
system of government. 

The idea of permanence or stability is, 
of course, offensive to those who change 
their opinions at every election, and 
whose great objection to the decalogue 
and the Sermon on the Mount is that 
they are so old and have never been re- 
written for modern use. Perhaps the 
fact of permanence will not seem so aw- 
ful when the average length of the judi- 
cial lives of the justices of that court is 
known. 

Outside the present members, the 
length of whose stay on the bench is still 
an uncertain quantity, the official lives of 
the justices have averaged not quite 
fifteen years and six months, not so long 
as the term of office of the judges of the 
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, which 
[73] 



The Supreme Court 

is twenty-one years, and only a trifle 
longer than that of the justices of the 
Court of Appeals of New York State, 
which is fourteen years. 

Although it is an old saying that a 
wise judge enlarges his jurisdiction, the 
history of the court shows that it has 
been very careful not to go one step be- 
yond the clear limits of its jurisdiction. 
It has always kept within rather than 
passed without the sphere established by 
the Constitution. 

It must also be remembered by those 
who are jealous of its power that it ini- 
tiates nothing. It cannot transfer a ques- 
tion from Congress to itself, and only as 
incidental to a hona fide controversy be- 
tween individuals can any question of 
the validity of official action, legislative 
or executive, national or state, be pre- 
sented for its consideration. Its only 
function in this direction is in occasion- 
ally checking hasty action, for by amend- 
ment of the Constitution the people can 
[74] 



By David J, Brewer 

always carry into effect that which they 
dehberately determine upon. 

I may add that never was this function 
more important than to-day. It is a 
day of great interests and great passions. 
There is a manifest building up of classes, 
based largely on differences of wealth, 
and, as a consequence, a growing ten- 
dency to class legislation. At such a time 
the importance of a stable tribunal, not 
easily moved by the temporary passions 
of interested classes, and checking efforts 
to deny to any that* equality of right 
which shines in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence as its most brilliant light, and 
for which the Constitution was profes- 
sedly established, is more than ever 
apparent. 

It is also worthy of notice that although 
there have been more than fifty members 
of that court, never has the personal in- 
tegrity of a single one been questioned. 
The decisions both of the court and of 
the individual justices have been some- 
[75] 



The Supreme Court 

times bitterly attacked, but the attack 
has been based on opposition to the de- 
cision, and not upon any question of 
personal integrity. 

John Marshall, who presided at the 
trial of Aaron Burr for treason, and who 
held firmly to the constitutional provision 
that any overt act thereof must be 
proved by the testimony of two witnesses, 
was loudly berated at the time. Never- 
theless, no man questioned his honesty, 
and subsequent reflection has convinced 
all of the correctness of his rulings. 

In the Dred Scott decision, and again 
in the income tax cases, the court received 
much criticism and condemnation ; and 
yet all the violent assaults were upon the 
ignorance, mistakes, or prejudices, real or 
supposed, of the justices, and not at all 
upon their personal character. 

One of the sights of Washington is the 

Supreme Court in session, and it impresses 

all visitors in a manner peculiarly its own. 

The court-room is a solemn-looking place. 

[76] 



By David J. Brewer 

Nine venerable gentlemen, in black robes, 
sit quietly listening while a single counsel 
addresses them. There is no haste in 
their proceedings, no noise or roar of the 
orator. Counsel seldoms lifts his voice 
above a conversational tone. Punctuality 
and regularity are obvious. At precisely 
twelve o'clock, noon, the crier announces 
the entrance of the court, and at half past 
four, precisely, they gather their robes 
about them and depart. Many a lawyer 
who has often tried cases in other courts 
feels his knees shake as he stands up 
before those black-robed gentlemen. 

Yet it must not be supposed that they 
are cold and destitute of sympathy ; that 
they sit there as mere legal machines, 
from whose icy, intellectual mechanics 
there come out cold, heartless products of 
unsympathetic justice. No more genial 
body of men is gathered in the country ; 
none more in sympathy with every effort 
for the betterment of human conditions. 
Each has been and is a hard worker ; only 
[77] 



The Supreme Court 

those familiar with the inner Ufe of the 
court have any adequate conception of 
the amount of work the justices have to 
do. Pohtically they are shelved; no 
brass band or military parade ever greets 
them at any place they may visit ; quietly, 
silently they work, and yet all realize that 
their work has a powerful influence on the 
life and destiny of the republic. 

As might be expected in a tribunal so 
constituted, old habits continue. Prece- 
dents are not lightly departed from. 
Many things are done as they have been 
done in times past. The messengers 
around the court are, many of them, as 
old as the justices, and some have been 
connected with the court much longer 
than any justice. The one who cares for 
the robes has been for more than fifty 
years an attache of the tribunal. Two or 
three have been connected with it for 
more than thirty years. The clerk, now 
past middle life, began work in that office 
as a boy. No one in the employ of the 
[78] 



By David J, Brewer 

court is disturbed so long as he does his 
work faithfully and well. 

Until the last two or three years the 
court opened at twelve o'clock and ad- 
journed at four, the justices during those 
hours separately stepping behind a screen 
in the rear of the bench, and there taking 
a lunch. It was not a dignified proceeding ; 
it was not pleasant for counsel making an 
argument to hear the rattle of dishes be- 
hind the screen, and to realize that some 
justice, whose attention he especially 
wanted, was comforting himself with a 
dozen oysters instead of listening to the 
argument. But so it had been for years, 
and so perhaps it might have continued 
but for the persistent efforts of one of 
the junior members of the court. 

Although there is a solemnity in its 
proceedings, which are generally desti- 
tute of the humor that is often found in 
the trial of an action at nisi prius, there 
is occasionally a break in the solemn 
movement and a touch of levity, and it 
[79] 



The Supreme Court 

may be affirmed that notwithstanding his 
black robe, each of the justices has a 
good mouth for laughter. An incident 
or two may illustrate this : 

Whenever the court, on hearing the 
argument of counsel for plaintiff in error, 
is entirely satisfied that he has no case, 
the chief justice is apt to say to counsel 
for defendant in error that the court does 
not care to hear further argument. At 
one time Hon. Matthew Carpenter from 
Wisconsin was counsel for plaintiff in 
error, and opened the case. Before he 
was through the court was satisfied that 
there was nothing in it, and so when he 
had concluded, and counsel for defendant 
in error arose. Chief Justice Waite said, 
**The court does not care to hear any 
further argument. ' ' 

Counsel was a little deaf, and although 
noticing that the chief justice spoke, did 
not hear what he had said, and turning 
to Mr. Carpenter, who sat beside him, 
asked what had been said. 
[80] 



By David J, Brewer 

*' Oh, hang it! " rephed Carpenter, in 
tones audible to the bench. " The chief 
justice said he would rather give you the 
case than hear you talk. ' ' 

At another time Hon. C. E. Mitchell, 
ex- Commissioner of Patents, was arguing 
in support of the validity of a patent for 
a collar button. It required no little 
ingenuity and ability to make manifest 
the novelty and utility of the supposed 
invention. A very earnest and forcible 
argument (one which, I may add paren- 
thetically, finally convinced the court of 
the validity of the patent) was being 
made by the excommissioner when one 
of the justices, who has the appearance 
of a rector of an Episcopal church, inter- 
rupted him by asking, with all due solem- 
nity, whether counsel claimed, as one of 
the elements of the novelty and utility 
of the patent, that if the button fell out 
of a man's shirt, as he was dressing, and 
rolled under the bed, the owner could 
find it without swearing ? Not expec- 
[81] 



The Supreme Court 

ting a question of that kind, Mr. Mitchell 
was for a moment a little nonplussed, 
but soon recovered, and disavowed, in 
behalf of his client, any claim for such 
an impossible invention. 

Among the stories which have come 
down from the traditions of the court is 
this about Chief Justice Marshall. He 
and some of his associates boarded in the 
same house and took their meals at the 
same table. At the instance of one of 
their number, it was agreed that they 
stop taking wine at their meals, except 
in case of rain, and then, doubtless, to 
ward off the prevalent malaria. 

The chief justice was fond of his Ma- 
deira, and after two or three days with- 
out any rain, he said at dinner, ' ' Brother 
Story, will you go to the window and 
see if it is raining? " 

Justice Story went to the window, 
examined the heavens, came back, and 
said that it was not raining, and that there 
was not a cloud to be seen. 
[82] 



By David J, Brewer 

**Well, " replied the chief justice, 
"our jurisdiction extends over a large 
extent of territory, and I am sure it 
must be raining somewhere in our juris- 
diction ; let us have the Madeira. ' ' 

While in session the associate justices 
are seated on either side of the chief 
justice, in the order of their commissions; 
the oldest in commission on his right; 
the next oldest on his left ; the third is 
second on the right and the fourth second 
on the left, and so on alternately, the 
youngest in commission occupying the 
seat on the extreme left. 

When Justice Field was the senior 
associate this arrangement produced this 
curious result : the names of the justices 
on the right had but a single syllable, — 
Field, Gray, Brown, and White, — while 
the names of those on the left had two 
syllables — Harlan, Brewer, Shiras, and 
Peckham. All were married, but no 
one of the justices on the right had ever 
had any children, while each of those on 
[83] 



The Supreme Court 

the left had both children and grand- 
children. The colors were all on the 
right, — Gray, Brown, and White, — 
while the left was colorless. 

In 1877 the court was called upon to 
take part — or at least some of the 
justices were — in the famous Electoral 
Commission, which decided the question 
of the presidency between Tilden and 
Hayes. This commission was composed 
of five members of the House, five mem- 
bers of the Senate, and five justices of the 
Supreme Court. 

The project for such a commission had 
been for a few days under discussion. 
The day before the bill therefor was in- 
troduced into Congress, or perhaps before 
its details were known. Justice Clifford, 
who was the senior associate justice, called 
the clerk of the court into his room and 
dictated letters to be sent to the presiding 
officers of the Senate and the House, 
positively declining to sit on any such 
tribunal. 

[84] 



By David J. Brewer 

When the text of the bill was made 
public, and it appeared that the senior 
associate justice was to be the presiding 
officer of the commission, Justice Clifford 
called the clerk and asked if the letters 
had been sent. The reply was in the 
negative. Thereupon he took the letters 
and destroyed them. He sat on the 
tribunal and presided with great pro- 
priety and dignity. Why he changed 
his determination so promptly is a matter 
which can only be surmised, as no reason 
was ever given. 

One thing more deserves mention. 
Not infrequently complaints are made of 
the dilatoriness of the court, and it is 
undoubtedly true that it does not dis- 
pose of so many cases, or work with such 
rapidity, as other appellate courts; but 
in no court are the questions presented 
of more far-reaching importance, and in 
none, therefore, is the duty greater of 
care and thoroughness in examination 
and consideration. The manner in which 
[85] 



The Supreme Court 

business is transacted indicates the efforts 
to secure such care and consideration. 

In addition to hearing the oral argu- 
ments of counsel, each justice, during the 
arguments and thereafter at his home, 
has a printed copy of all briefs and the 
entire record of the case. Saturday of 
each week is the day of conference, — the 
day on which no open sessions are held, 
— and at that conference, the cases which 
have been argued or submitted are called 
by the chief justice and discussed. Such 
discussion is free and full. Each justice 
is expected to have examined the record 
and the briefs, and to be prepared to 
express his individual opinion. In im- 
portant cases, the discussion is not infre- 
quently continued from week to week. 

After it has been discussed as fully as 
any one desires, the roll is called by the 
chief justice, and a vote taken on affirming 
or reversing. Saturday night, after the 
conference is over, the chief justice assigns 
the cases that have been decided to the 
[86] 



By David J. Brewer, 

different justices for opinions. No one 
knows in what case he may be called 
upon to prepare the opinion until it has 
been decided. 

Thereafter the justice receiving a case 
writes an opinion in accordance with the 
views of the majority, as expressed in the 
conference, supporting it by such argu- 
ments and citations of authority as seem 
to him necessary, and sends the opinion 
thus written to the printer. Nine copies 
are struck off, and a copy is sent to each 
justice. 

Suggestions, objections, and criticisms 
of all kinds are returned by the other jus- 
tices to the writer of the opinion. Often 
the number of suggestions and criticisms 
is so great that the opinion is rewritten, 
and copies thereof are printed and circu- 
lated. Thereafter the case is called up 
again in conference, and the opinion, 
with the criticisms and objections, is dis- 
cussed, and those criticisms and objections 
are approved or voted down by the ma- 
[87] 



The Supreme Court 

jority. Not until after this is the opinion 
ready for announcement. 

It will be seen, therefore, that every 
case is carefully sifted before the decision 
is made public. And while it would be 
absurd to claim infallibility, for that does 
not belong to human tribunals, it may 
safely be said that there are few, if any, 
tribunals in the world in which greater 
care is taken to secure an absolutely just 
and right conclusion. It is not strange, 
therefore, that when a case has passed 
through such handling, the opinions of 
the justices are quite firmly fixed. It 
is not often that they are convinced of 
error or mistake, and thus petitions for 
rehearing are seldom sustained. 

Such are some of the features of the 
outer and inner life of the Supreme Court 
of the United States. Is it too much to 
say that it is all-important for the well- 
being of this republic, and that nothing 
should be done to abridge its powers or 
hamper its usefulness? In its stabihty 
[88] 



By David J". Brewer 

and permanence, is found assurance that 
popular government will not degenerate 
into government by the mob ; and while 
it continues an unimpaired factor in our 
national life, the republic will live, a 
blessing to its citizens and a light to the 
world. 



[89] 



HOW JACK LIVES 

BY JOHN D. LONG 

EX-SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 

THE opening of the new century 
naturally suggests a retrospection in 
all branches of science, and a comparison 
of things as we find them to-day with 
what they were a hundred years ago. I 
shall, while touching on the general im- 
provement in warship construction, con- 
fine myself rather to what has been done 
to make our ships more attractive to the 
people who have to man them. To do 
so, it is necessary that I should tell you 
what many of you probably know, that 
in the days when the Constitution was the 
embodiment of all that was considered 
[93] 



How Jack Lives 

stanch, powerful, and picturesque in naval 
architecture, the comforts enjoyed in the 
ships commanded by such men as Hull, 
Porter, Bainbridge, and Lawrence were 
few indeed for the officers, and corre- 
spondingly less for the men. 

Steam, that powerful agent which has 
worked such a revolution in the method 
of propulsion, had not been thought of 
for use in warships. All operations were 
performed by manual power, and the 
extended voyages, made under sail and 
necessarily of long duration, entailed 
what nowadays would be looked upon as 
great hardships by both officers and men. 
Corned beef, or " salt horse " as it is still 
called by the men, and salt pork were the 
only meats carried, and to these were 
added salt fish, flour, rice, potatoes, 
beans, and peas. '' Hardtack, " of course, 
formed the principal bread supply, and 
tea and coffee the beverages. Such was 
the menu at sea. 

In port, fresh beef took the place of 
[94] 



By John JD. Long" 

salt horse; and this, with such vegetables 
as could be obtained, was served two or 
three times a week. This was the ration 
supplied the men, for the officers, as 
now, provided for themselves; but we 
can well imagine that, at sea, their 
fare was not materially better than the 
men's, as other food could not be car- 
ried. 

A short quotation from the writings of 
a distinguished officer who served about 
forty years later will show that matters 
had not improved much during that 
period. He was a midshipman at the 
time, and the vessel in which he was 
serving was on a voyage from Norfolk to 
Vera Cruz. He says : 

'*Our hard bread was much infested 
with weevils and other bugs, but by re- 
baking until crisj), it could be eaten by 
hungry men without repugnance. The 
salt beef was often tough and indigestible, 
the rice badly cooked, and the salt pork 
and bean soup the only delicacy we had, 
[95] 



How Jack Lives 

unless a cultivated taste made * duff ' 
acceptable. 

Now, thanks to the wonderful advance 
that has been made in preserving food of 
all kinds, the navy ration issued to our 
men is justly regarded as the best, as it 
is the most varied in character, in any 
naval service. ' ' Salt horse ' ' and salt 
pork are still retained, and are properly 
considered the mainstay of the meat 
supply at sea; for, while canned meats 
are issued and are enjoyed by the men for 
a time, they are always glad when the 
salt-horse day comes round. 

Chief among the canned meats is roast 
beef, familiarly known as * ' soup and 
bully," perhaps from the fact, if it be a 
fact, that the first of it that was supplied 
bore the label, Soupe de Bouillon. This 
is the much-maligned army roast beef, of 
which the navy is, and for years has been, 
a large consumer. 

Then come corned beef, chicken, and 
mutton ; tomatoes, peas, beans, flour, rice, 
[96] 



By John D, Long 

milk, coffee, tea, and cocoa, and many- 
other palatable and nourishing articles. 
Hardtack is still issued, but it is, of 
course, of better quality, and is known 
as bread ; but except on long voyages the 
allowance is seldom drawn by the men. 
The officers provide for their mess in as 
great variety as their pockets and their 
tastes suggest. 

While such great improvement has 
been made in the quality of the men's 
food, advance has also been made in its 
preparation. The mess arrangements for 
the men have also improved to as great a 
degree as is possible when the number of 
men and the space are considered. 

Each mess of about twelve men has its 
caterer, who is one of its number and is 
supposed to have a general supervision 
over the mess cook and the food, and to 
whom each member pays monthly a small 
sum of money to be expended for delica- 
cies. Then, in each mess of twelve men, 
three rations are ''commuted" every 
[97] 



How Jack Lives 

month. That is, the money value of the 
ration is paid by the government to the 
caterer of the mess, and the number of 
ship's rations issued to that mess re- 
duced accordingly. 

As the value of the daily ration is thirty 
cents, there is thus about twenty- seven 
dollars available for use by the caterer 
every month. In some cases the chief 
petty officers are permitted to commute 
all their rations, and thus to regulate 
their mess on the same lines as the com- 
missioned officers do theirs. 

We are told that in the early days of 
the navy the men ate from ' ' large plat- 
forms placed on casks or suspended from 
the deck above," and that when eating 
they sat on benches. We are not told 
how long this arrangement continued, but 
it was probably short-lived, for the '* mess- 
cloth " was the recognized table for more 
than half a century ; that is, a large piece 
of painted canvas — a tarpaulin — was 
spread upon the deck for each mess, and 
[98] 



By John Z>. Long 

upon it were placed the food for that 
mess, and each man's mess utensils, con- 
sisting generally of a tin cup, a pan, a 
knife and fork, and a spoon. When the 
mess call was sounded by the boatswain's 
mates blowing peculiarly shrill notes on 
their pipes, each man repaired to his own 
mess-cloth, took his place, and helped him- 
self to food. 

Now we are returning to much the 
arrangement just described : the table, one 
for each mess, has rope slings at the ends 
by means of which it is suspended from 
hammock hooks fastened to the beams 
overhead; the benches have hinged legs, 
so that when not in use they can be 
thrown down, thus taking up the space 
of but two thicknesses of plank. When 
the meal is over the benches are laid on 
top of the tables, and the whole then 
stowed overhead between the beams. 
Agate-ware has almost entirely sup- 
planted tinware for mess utensils. 

Little or no change has been made in 
[99] 



How Jack Lives 

the sleeping accommodations for the 
men; they sleep now as they did a hun- 
dred years ago, in hammocks, which are 
stowed in the *' nettings" or the bul- 
warks of the ship during the daytime, 
and at night are swung from hooks fast- 
ened to the beams. There are many 
good reasons for this arrangement. In 
the first place, there would not be room 
enough on board ship to berth the crew 
in any other manner. Secondly, they 
can sleep well in a hammock at sea, 
whereas sleeping in a berth, or * * bunk, ' ' 
as it is called in the navy, is not always 
an easy thing to do, especially if there is 
much sea on. Then, as I stated when 
speaking of the messing arrangements, it 
is necessary for the proper conduct of the 
military duties of the ship that the space 
where hammocks are swung at night be 
free of obstructions during the daytime. 
Lastly, the plan contributes to the main- 
tenence of cleanliness and good ventila- 
tion. 

[100] 



By John D, Lofig''' " '-^ > •> > 

Although I have said that the men 
sleep as they did a hundred years ago, an 
exception must be made in the ease of 
the chief petty officers, for whom, in all 
the large ships, folding bunks or Pullman 
berths are provided. With the officers, 
as with the men, the arrangements are 
practically the same as they have always 
been, the improvements being such as 
have naturally followed new methods of 
construction. 

There is probably no one thing that 
has contributed more to general comfort 
on board ship than the introduction of 
fresh- water distillers, which of course did 
not make their appearance until some 
time after the introduction of steam. 

Up to that time the supply of fresh 
water for drinking and cooking was taken 
on board in casks, and its preservation 
looked after with the greatest solicitude, 
for upon its maintenance in a state of 
purity depended the very existence of 
every soul on board. 

[101] 



' ' ' ' ' tlow Jack Lives 

Under such circumstances it can be 
readily understood that fresh water was 
not used for bathing or for washing cloth- 
ing, and that the quantity apportioned to 
officers and men was always kept at the 
lowest limit. So carefully was the expend- 
iture of water looked after that the cap- 
tain was required to note in the log the 
number of gallons expended each day and 
the number of gallons remaining on hand, 
a custom that is still followed. 

When such care was exercised, we can 
well imagine to what desperate ends the 
dauntless Hull in the Co7istitution was 
reduced during the memorable chase of 
that gallant ship by the British fleet in 
1812, when he ordered that twenty-two 
hundred and thirty-five gallons of w?ter 
be pumped overboard, in order to lighten 
the ship. 

The water taken on board was often 
anything but wholesome, and it is small 
wonder that disease was rampant in the 
early ships. 

[102] 



By John D. Long' 

The use of steam happily changed all 
this, although for many years after the 
close of the Civil War water was not 
generally distilled in vessels of the navy 
except on long voyages. Later on, med- 
ical statistics showed that, in ships where 
distilled water only was used, there was 
almost an entire freedom from dysentery 
and enteric fevers, while these disorders 
were more or less common in vessels that 
used water purchased in different ports. 
Gradually the practice of distilling water 
for drinking purposes became general, 
and now shore water is seldom purchased, 
the distilling plants of our ships being 
ample for all demands, the latest specifi- 
cations calling for a capacity of ten thou- 
sand gallons a day. 

The process of distilling sea-water con- 
sists in evaporating it into steam and then 
condensing the steam in a ' ' still ' ' or dis- 
tiller, which is essentially a coil of pipe 
through which steam is passed and around 
which cool sea-water circulates for the 
[103] 



How Jack Lives 

purpose of condensing the steam. When 
thus made, the water, although whole- 
some, has a flat taste, and to make it 
more palatable, air is mixed with the 
steam as it goes to the distiller, and thus is 
produced what is known as aerated water. 

While the liberal allowance of distilling 
plant on our newer ships gives to every- 
body all the fresh water he wants for 
cooking and drinking, a limit is put on 
the quantity served out for bathing and 
washing purposes. The regulations, how- 
ever, provide that a certain amount of 
fresh water shall be served out to the men 
on the evening of the day preceding that 
on which the clothes are to be washed. 
Further, the specifications for the latest 
ships provide a laundry capable of doing 
at one time the washing for seventy-five 
men, and it is believed that this innova- 
tion will prove a great convenience to 
the men. 

Closely allied to this subject of fresh 
water supply are the facilities that have 
[104] 



By John D, Long 

been introduced for bathing. In the 
olden days, the only means a man had 
was to use a bucket and salt water, of 
course. Now bathrooms are provided 
where he may have a hot or a cold shower, 
and where there is always an abundant 
supply of water. Although the majority 
will probably cling to the bucket for the 
morning "wash," the bathroom as an 
institution is well received and well pa- 
tronized, for Jack is generally a clean man, 
and where there is an inclination to be 
otherwise, the officers see to it that he 
does not neglect to give proper attention 
to bathing. Especially is the bathroom 
a comfort to the firemen and coal-passers. 
Another comfort unknown in the days 
of sailing-ships, and for which, like all the 
others, we are indebted to the introduc- 
tion of steam, is the method of heating, 
which is, in all essential particulars, iden- 
tical with any system of steam-heating 
that may be found on shore. Before the 
advent of steam, a shot heated red-hot at 
[105] 



How Jack Lives 

the galley and deposited in a bucket of 
sand was the generally recognized method 
of heating, although stoves were used to 
a limited extent in the officers' quarters. 
I believe that no other nation gives so 
much attention to this subject as we do, 
and the result is that our ships are com- 
fortable in winter even in the coldest 
climates. 

Probably the one thing next in order 
that has contributed most to the comfort 
and contentment of officers and men is 
the electric light, which of course is a 
thing of comparatively recent introduc- 
tion. To understand how much this has 
added to the general comfort, it is only 
necessary to state that in the days of our 
first frigates ' * tallow dips ' ' alone supplied 
the light, that the fixed lights in the ship 
were few and naturally of little brilliancy, 
and that in consequence work of any kind 
by the men for themselves after dark was 
not to be thought of, and that the little 
reading done by officers was on a very 
[106] 



By John D, Long 

limited scale. The allowance of candles 
was limited to seven a week ; if a man 
wanted a good light he had to use several 
candles at once, and thus his supply would 
soon be exhausted. 

Now, besides the fixed electric lights in 
the men's quarters, in the wardroom, and 
in the junior officers' quarters, or *' steer- 
age, ' ' as the latter was long called, there 
are a number of others in the men's quar- 
ters and one in every officer's room. The 
comfort of these can be thoroughly appre- 
ciated only by those officers of the ' ' old 
navy ' ' who have passed through the 
' ' tallow dip ' ' experience. Up to a cer- 
tain hour at night the men's quar- 
ters are well lighted, and it is not an 
unusual sight to see many of them sit- 
ting around a light reading, writing, 
sewing, or playing checkers or backgam- 
mon, which seem to be their favorite 
games. 

While the electric light thus ministers 
to their comfort after working hours, it is 
[107] 



How Jack Lives 

none the less a boon to those who have 
to work during the day beneath the decks, 
in compartments that have httle or no 
natural light. Especially is this true of 
the firemen and other men of the engi- 
neer's force, who frequently have to go 
into boilers and other close places to 
clean them. 

But with all this advance in lighting, 
the candle still finds a place on board 
ship. Having lost its proud place as a 
lighting agent, it now does duty as a 
detective of impure air. The regulations 
make the use of the candle obligatory in 
testing the air in double bottoms and in 
boilers before men are sent into them to 
work. 

In the old days of candles and oil lamps 
it was necessary, when work was to be 
done which required a light, to obtain 
permission of the captain to use one. 
Then the light was, if possible, enclosed 
in a lantern ; but where it had to be open 
or ''naked," the greatest precautions 
[108] 



By John D. Long 

were taken to see that damage did not 
follow its use. Now, thanks to the ad- 
aptability of electric power, lights are 
turned on in the most remote parts of 
the ship with absolute confidence in their 
safety. In the men's quarters all except 
the fixed lights which are necessary in 
making the night inspections are ex- 
tinguished at eight o'clock; those in the 
steerage at nine, and those in the ward- 
room at ten, although in the latter two 
places it is customary for the captain to 
grant an extension of one hour for lights 
in officers' rooms. 

In the early days of the navy there was 
probably no cause that contributed more 
to sickness than bad ventilation. One 
writer says that at the time of the Amer- 
ican Revolution *'the sanitary condition 
of warships, in spite of the reduction 
made in the number of the crew, was 
very imperfect. In fact, the greatest 
danger on an extended voyage was not 
so much the perils of the sea or attacks 
[109] 



How Jack Lives 

from the enemy, as scurvy, small-pox, 
and other diseases." 

This condition of course improved 
gradually, but it was not until late in 
the century that this government fully 
recognized — and it was the first to do so 
— the necessity and the importance of 
providing artificial ventilation. Up to 
that time, aside fi^om the air supplied 
through hatches, the only air that found 
its way below was that supplied by 
"wind sails," those long canvas pipes, 
with ''ears" to direct the wind below, 
which are sometimes seen even now. 

Nowadays every ship of any size has an 
elaborate system of mechanical ventila- 
tion, by means of which fans, operated 
by small steam-engines or electric motors, 
force a continuous supply of fresh air into 
the living apartments and exhaust a like 
quantity of impure air. Ventilating ducts 
extend throughout the ship, having out- 
lets in all the principal compartments, 
storerooms, cabins, and officers' state- 
[110] 



By John JD, Long 

rooms; these outlets are provided with 
a sUding cover or louver, by means of 
which the supply can be regulated by the 
individual to suit his fancy. 

Without such a system it would be 
almost impossible to live with any degree 
of comfort on board a modern ship in the 
tropics, for the heat given off by radia- 
tion from the boilers, steam-pipes, and 
engines raises the temperature of the ship 
to such a degree that it could not be 
cooled off by natural means. Portable 
electric fans are supplied for ventilating 
such parts of the ship as cannot be con- 
veniently reached by the air ducts, and 
for improving the quality of the air in 
the double bottoms and other confined 
spaces. 

Another thing that has added to the 
comfort of the officers and men, and 
especially to the comfort of the sick, has 
been the introduction of the ice machine. 

All the large ships, and some of the 
small ones, are provided with this appa- 

[111] 



How Jack Lives 

ratus, in conjunction with which is a 
cold room for the stowage of fresh meats. 
In our ships air is used as the coohng 
agent, there being objection to the use 
of ammonia on account of the fumes due 
to leakage around the machine. 

The principle on which the air machine 
works may be familiar to some readers, 
but as others may not understand just 
how air can be used for the purpose, I 
will state that it is a well-known physical 
law that when air is compressed it is 
heated, and that when it expands it loses 
heat, or as we say, it is cooled ; and this 
condition is turned to practical advantage 
in the ice machine. 

The air is first compressed, and while 
under pressure it is cooled by passing 
through a coil of pipe around which a 
current of sea- water flows, in a manner 
similar to the distiller; this operation 
cools the air without reducing its pres- 
sure; the cooled air is then expanded, 
and in doing so loses heat. This air is 
[112] 



By John D. Long' 

then returned to the machine, and goes 
through the same process a number of 
times before it is cooled sufficiently to 
freeze anything. 

But the air is not used directly as the 
freezing agent, for in order to obtain the 
required results it is necessary to use 
a freezing mixture, just as in freezing 
cream. 

For this reason the cold air from the 
machine is passed in pipes through a 
freezing mixture of brine, in which are 
immersed small tanks containing the 
water to be frozen. From the ice tank 
it goes to the cold room, where it passes 
through pipes arranged along the sides 
of the room, after which it goes to the 
*' scuttle butt," which is a cask contain- 
ing drinking water for the men. It then 
returns to the machine again to repeat 
the operation. 

The quantity of ice that is made is 
rather limited, — about two hundred 
pounds a day, made in two ''crops" of 
[113] 



How Jack Lives 

one hundred pounds each, — but the 
water in the scuttle butt is always kept 
at such a low temperature that nobody 
feels the need of ice. 

The recent war with Spain witnessed 
the introduction of a feature that has 
added greatly to the comfort of officers 
and men, and that was the sending of a 
supply ship laden with fresh meat and 
other supplies to Admiral Sampson's 
fleet blockading at Santiago and along 
the Cuban coast ; in consequence, those 
faithful watchers lived as well as could 
be expected under the conditions of war. 

For Admiral Dewey's fleet at Manila 
we purchased a ''refrigerator ship," 
which made, and still makes, periodical 
trips to Australia, where she fills up with 
fresh meat and takes it to Manila for 
issue to the fleet in Philippine waters. 

These are some of the noticeable com- 
forts that the century just passed gave 
us. There are many others of less im- 
portance, all tending to lighten Jack's 
[ 114 ] 



By John D. Long 

work, to make his life on board ship more 
agreeable, and to give more time for drills 
and the various duties which a modern 
navy exacts of its men. 

If Jack is sick he is sent to the ' ' sick 
bay," which is the ship's hospital, and is 
excused from all work ; if ill enough, he 
is put to bed, either in his hammock or 
in a swinging cot; he has a nurse to look 
out carefully for his wants, and is put 
on a special diet. 

Attached to the sick bay is the dispen- 
sary, or apothecary shop, where a stock 
of medicines and surgical appliances is 
kept under the immediate care of the 
apothecary, who is a registered pharma- 
cist. 

A well-appointed bathroom with hot 
and cold water service completes the 
hospital equipment, the whole of which 
is in charge of the surgeon of the ship. 

If Jack's illness is mild, or if he has 
been injured so that he cannot perform 
his duties, no restraint is placed on hi§ 
[115] 



How Jack Lives 

reading. The ship's hbrary is well 
stocked with books of fiction and travel, 
and is open for the men to draw books 
once or twice a week. 

Space on board ship is too A^aluable to 
permit any allotment for a *'tonsorial 
parlor," but a place is assigned for the 
barber's chair, and here, for a small 
monthly sum, the amount of which is 
regulated by the captain, the barber, an 
enlisted man, shaves Jack twice a week 
and cuts his hair once a month. 

Each flagship has a band which plays 
for half an hour every morning, begin- 
ning at eight o'clock, when the national 
ensign is hoisted, and for an hour every 
evening, beginning at the time of the 
officers' dinner, which is usually six 
o'clock. During the latter hour the 
decks are alive with dancers if the se- 
lections are such as to admit of dan- 
cing. 

The flagship also carries a printer, 
whose duty it is to print the squadron 
[116] 



By John Z>. Long 

orders and circulars, and such other mat- 
ter as the admiral considers necessary. 
Such ships frequently print a paper, which 
is edited and published by the men, and 
which is the recognized repository for all 
ship's jokes. 

Although there is not a rating of tailor 
in the navy, it has been said that every 
sailor is a tailor, and this is practically 
true of those who have served two or 
three enlistments. Still, in all ships 
there are generally some men who sew 
especially well, and who are skillful in 
the art of making sailors' clothes; and 
these men are always busy after working 
hours. 

Jack has recognized the value of the 
sewing-machine as a labor-saving appli- 
ance, and it is not an unusual sight to 
see as many as half a dozen of them in a 
ship. These machines are of the hand 
variety, and are the property of the men 
who operate them. The price charged 
for making clothes is a private matter 
[117] 



How Jack Lives 

that is regulated by the men themselves, 
but as there is considerable competition 
for the work, we may reasonably believe 
that the charges are not excessive. 

It must not be inferred from the fore- 
going that Jack's life on board ship is 
one entirely of ease. Good, hard work is 
required, and he is trained to prompt and 
efficient duty and special exertion when 
emergencies occur. 

Necessarily, a life on shipboard under 
strict rules or discipline is more confined 
than that of the ordinary working man 
on shore, except so far as the latter 's lim- 
ited hours of labor are concerned. 

Jack is also subject to punishments for 
infractions of discipline, such as depriva- 
tion of leave to go on shore, sometimes a 
loss of wages for a definite time, and, in 
severe cases, confinement. 

For the most part his labor is not 

heavy, unless in the case of the fireman 

and the coal-passer, whose duty takes 

them into the bowels of the ship and ex- 

[118] 



By John D. Long 

poses them to great heat, and to very 
hard work in hfting and shovehng coal 
and in attending the fires. They perform, 
however, only eight hours' work dur- 
ing the day, in periods of four hours 
each, with an interval of eight hours 
between. 

In bad weather and storms comes the 
element of increased danger. Boats are 
sometimes lost, and now and then a man 
goes overboard: some of the most gal- 
lant exploits of the navy have been in 
rescues in such cases. Everything in the 
way of life-preservers and life-saving ap- 
paratus is provided on board ship. 

It is a life at once of long periods of 
ease and occasions of hardship. Perhaps, 
after all, the hardest thing to endure is 
the long hours of leisure, for which, how- 
ever, all possible provision is made in the 
way of books and proper diversion, and 
to which a chaplain is expected to con- 
tribute his good help and influence. The 
spirit existing between the officers and 
[119] 



How Jack Lives 

men is far better than it was ever before, 
and a good sailor is sure to feel the appre- 
ciation and regard of his officers, and to 
find his path made as easy as the disci- 
pline of the ship will permit. 



[120] 



THE, NAVAL WAk. COLLEGE 







fei 


^Hi^Q 


JOHN dTlONG 


OF THE NAVY 




The Naval War College 

(With portrait of Admiral Dewey) 



THE NAVAL WAE 
COLLEGE 

BY JOHN D. LONG 

EX-SECRETARY OF THE NAVY 

SO long as war remains as a method 
of arbitrament it will engage the 
most scientific studies of enlightened 
peoples. In the hands of the most civil- 
ized nations, whose best estate is peace, 
war is most a science, and its destructive 
power greatest and swiftest. 

If this seems like a contradiction, or a 
meeting of extremes, it is because, in the 
highest stage of civilization, whatever is 
done is done at its best. The ancient 
Greeks supplemented practical experience 
by theoretical instruction, training young 
men in the art of war. Other peoples 
[123] 



The Naval War College 

followed their example, and from that 
day to this the intelligent, equipped, and 
trained soldier has been equal to many 
times his number lacking those qualities. 
Peace has been the time for the study of 
war, and war has put in practice the prin- 
ciples learned in peace. 

The great masters of battle have all 
recognized the value of preparation, not 
only in the matter of material, but of 
personnel as well. Preparation for war 
is the touchstone of success. Almost 
until the moment hostilities begin, it 
leaves the diplomatic hand of the govern- 
ment free to act without the embarrass- 
ment consequent upon the effort to make 
ready, which in itself adds a complication 
to the situation. Further than this, it 
enables prompt and decisive action, either 
the striking of a blow at the beginning 
of war, which always produces a tremen- 
dous moral effect, or the repelling of an 
attack made by an equally alert and vig- 
orous enemv. 

[124] 



By John D, Long 

Naval preparation includes not only the 
building of the latest vessels of war, their 
armament with the latest products of the 
ordnance factory, and their equipment 
with the latest output of inventive genius, 
but also the education of the men to 
handle the instruments placed in their 
hands, and of the officers to direct men, 
instruments, and ship to the greatest 
possible advantage. 

For the instruction of the enlisted 
branch of the service there are with us 
the apprentice training schools, the lands- 
men's training ships, the gunnery school, 
and the electrical school ; for the commis- 
sioned force, there is the Naval Acad- 
emy, the Torpedo School, and the Naval 
War College. 

It is in this last-named institution that 
the American naval officer is taught the 
science of war. At the Naval Academy 
at Annapolis he acquires the rudiments 
of his profession; on board ship he gains 
the experience requisite to make him a 
[125] 



. The Naval War College 

practical man-o'-war's man; at the Tor- 
pedo School at Newport he learns the 
properties of torpedoes, including the 
methods of their manufacture and use; 
and at the War College, situated hard 
by, he teaches and is taught the larger 
lessons of movement, strategy, and cam- 
paign. 

Before the establishment of the col- 
lege, able articles on naval warfare were 
written and published by different offi- 
cers, but there was lack of that system 
necessary to the achievement of more 
satisfactory results. Long ago the need 
of an advanced course of military and 
naval education, to enable the naval offi- 
cers to keep abreast of improvements in 
war material, became apparent to the ser- 
vice ; and this need was made more patent 
by the victories of Von Moltke in the 
Franco-Prussian War, when the German 
armies rushed to victory along the lines 
previously laid down by the German mili- 
tary staff, of which Von Moltke was the 
[126] 



By John D. Long 

head. With the birth of the new navy 
advanced instruction became imperative, 
and the War College was born. 

Hon. William E. Chandler, then Sec- 
retary of the Navy, under date of May 3, 
1884, appointed a board of three officers 
to *' report upon the whole subject of a 
postgraduate course, or school of applica- 
tion, for officers of the navy. ' ' The re- 
port submitted five weeks later declared 
that there w^as ''not only reason but 
necessity ' ' for the establishment of such 
a course, and urged particularly the 
special study of war and international 
law. 

''A cogent reason for such a school," 
the report states, ' ' is that there may be 
a place where our officers will not only 
be encouraged, but required, to study 
their profession proper — war — in a far 
more thorough manner than has ever 
heretofore been attempted, and to bring 
to the investigation of the various prob- 
lems of modern naval warfare the scien- 
[127] 



The Naval War College 

tific methods adopted in other professions. 
. . . The bare statement that our naval 
officers not only do not study war as a 
science, but have no adequate school of 
practice, seems in these days of broad 
and liberal culture so extraordinary that 
it is alone, in the judgment of the board, 
sufficient reason for the early founding of 
the institution which the Department 
has under consideration." 

On October 6, 1884, Secretary Chand- 
ler issued an order establishing the col- 
lege, and assigning the principal building 
on Coasters' Harbor Island, in the harbor 
of Newport, to its use. A few months 
later Congress made an appropriation of 
eight thousand dollars for the mainte- 
nance of the college, and on September 
4, 1885, a class of eight officers reported 
for duty and attendance upon the course. 
The building used as the college had been 
an asylum for the city of Newport, but 
with the improvements made, it satis- 
factorily answered the purpose of its 
[128] 



By John D, Long 

transformation until the erection of the 
present structure, authorized by the act 
making appropriations for the naval ser- 
vice, which was approved June 30, 1890. 
This legislation is a corner-stone in the 
peace history of the navy. 

Important as continued theoretical ad- 
vancement is to the service, there was 
grave danger that the absence of general 
interest in the college would prevent the 
institution from giving the full measure 
of good its founders anticipated ; but the 
erection of a building specially for college 
purposes, in accordance with specific au- 
thority granted by Congress, gave encour- 
agement to the Department's efforts to 
organize each summer a class to discuss 
the subjects embraced in the course. 

As an illustration of the work done in 
the early years of the new college, it may 
be interpolated here that one of the prob- 
lems then considered dealt with the de- 
parture of a hostile Spanish fleet from the 
peninsula for Santiago de Cuba. An 
[129] 



The Naval War College 

American fleet was instructed to prevent 
its arrival. As Admiral Cervera was suc- 
cessful in reaching his destination, so was 
the imaginary squadron, the American 
command failing to get in touch with it 
because of limited scouting. 

The Naval War College building is 
well adapted to the purpose for which it 
was built. Externally it is pleasing to 
the eye, and the internal arrangements 
were made under the direction of Capt. 
A. T. Mahan specially for the convenient 
execution of the work carried on and the 
comfort of the officers in attendance 
upon the course. The Flemish style 
of architecture was copied, and three 
stepped gables in front lend an air of 
picturesqueness in harmony with the nat- 
ural surroundings. The building is of 
rock-faced ashlar granite, and is on an 
elevation which commands a view, be- 
yond a spreading lawn dotted near the 
shore with the white tents of the appren- 
tice boys, of the inner and outer harbor 
[130] 



By John D, Long 

of Newport and the entrance to the 
bay. 

To obtain the best results from the 
discussion, and to insure a wide diffusion 
of the benefits arising therefrom, it has 
been customary for the North Atlantic 
Squadron to call annually at Newport 
and engage in such maneuvers as may 
most greatly assist the college in the solu- 
tion of the problem under consideration 
at the time. The selection of Coasters' 
Harbor Island as the site of the college 
was undoubtedly largely influenced by 
the superior facilities offered men-of-war 
by the harbor of Newport. The island is 
nearly one hundred acres in extent, only 
three and one half acres of which, how- 
ever, form the grounds belonging to the 
college, the remainder being under the 
jurisdiction of the apprentice training 
station. 

The building comprises the college 
proper, occupying the central part, and 
two sets of quarters, in each corner, for 
[131] , 



The Naval War College 

the use of officers attached to the mstitu- 
tion or attending the course. The col- 
lege part of the structure is divided into 
two large lecture rooms, a fine technical 
library, a number of offices and chart 
rooms, and also lodging rooms for the 
lecturers. 

The several officers, who have served 
as president of the college, have kept 
prominent the object of its establishment 
— the study of war and of international 
law. The lectures, the library, the 
charts, and the data collected all deal 
with these subjects. The lectures usually 
have a close relation to the problem of 
the year, and in addition to the general 
information they impart, they prepare 
the minds of the class for the logical solu- 
tion which is sought. 

For instance, the problem of the course 
of 1900 dealt with ''The defense of the 
northwest coast of the United States, 
north of the Columbia River, and the 
protection of our insular possessions — 
[132] 



By John D. Long 

Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines. 
The discussion of this problem involved 
the study of the resources and the strat- 
egical, topographical, and hydrographical 
features of these countries and contiguous 
v^aters, and their defense against the 
attack of a strong naval power. 

In no field of human thought does the 
study of history and geography play a 
more important part than in that of 
naval warfare. History searches the past 
and thereby illumines the future. Its 
reproductions of the campaigns, military 
and naval, that have covered almost 
every section of the globe, enable the 
seeker to learn the causes and effects of 
the moves made on the chessboard of war 
by the commanders of opposing armies 
and navies, and to acquaint himself with 
the various strategical points which they 
occupied, and which must, by reason of 
geographical position, be as important of 
occupation in the future. 

Correlative with the study of history 
[133] 



The Naval War College 

is that of geography, described by Von 
Moltke as three fourths of the science of 
war. The college has paid special atten- 
tion to the collection of charts, which 
permit the student to become intimately 
acquainted with the waters of the earth 
and the harbors strategically valuable for 
defense, occupation, or blockade, and of 
maps, which materially aid him in fol- 
lowing the plans of campaign pursued 
in the past by the masters of military 
strategy. 

Historical and geographical lectures, 
therefore, form a prominent feature of 
the course, and they are supplemented 
by lectures on combined military and 
naval operations, the sea power of na- 
tions of the world, international law, the 
proper organization, mobilization, and 
expansion of the American navy at out- 
break of war, the value in action of the 
several types of warships, naval hygiene, 
and other subjects of a kindred nature. 
Especially important are the lectures on 
[134] 



By John D. Long' 

combined military and naval operations 
and international law. 

If it accomplish no other result than to 
effect more complete harmony of action 
by the naval and military services, the 
college will have served its purpose. Rec- 
ognizing the importance of bringing the 
army, the navy, the marine corps, and 
the revenue cutter services into closer 
relation. Secretary Root and Secretary 
Gage, upon invitation of the Navy De- 
partment, ordered officers of their respec- 
tive establishments to attend the courses 
of the Naval War College. 

Secretary Root contemplates taking 
yet another step in behalf of military ed- 
ucation, and under his direction a board 
is formulating plans for the establishment 
of a military war college, which shall co- 
operate with the Naval War College in 
the solution of problems dealing with 
combined operations, and by such coop- 
eration insure the harmony of action so 
earnestly sought by the two services. 
[135] 



The Naval War College 

Besides the lectures on international law, 
which more particularly relate to its mar- 
itime phase, international questions are 
put to each officer for solution, and this 
feature of the course may perhaps be best 
understood by quoting problems from 
the list presented for determination dur- 
ing the course of 1900 : 

"War existing between the United 
States and a European power, you are 
exercising the right of search in Eastern 
Asia, to facilitate operations against a 
colonial port. The port is blockaded by 
sea, but partly invested only on the land 
side. It is especially important that no 
supplies that will continue to facilitate 
defense be allowed to reach this blockaded 
port by sea, or indirectly overland. 

'' Cruising offshore, you meet a ship of 
a nation with which we are at peace, 
carrying, as part of her cargo, rice and 
other provisions that are marked for mer- 
cantile firms in the besieged port. The 
papers and circumstances are very clear 
[136] 



Sy John T), Long 

as to the ship's destination, which is a 
neutral port on the same peninsula as the 
besieged port. What action do you take 
toward the neutral vessel ? ' ' 

There is another feature of the college 
course that goes far to complete the tac- 
tical and strategical education of an officer, 
and that has a practical side of decided 
value. War games, simulating as nearly 
as possible the actual conditions of war, 
are played and watched with the most 
absorbing interest. They benefit players 
and spectators alike in causing the obser- 
vance of the principles of warfare, the 
application of lessons taught by individ- 
ual experience, and the practical use of 
information acquired during the course. 
Moreover, the playing of the games en- 
genders quickness of thought and action, 
which must necessarily produce results 
upon occasions of emergency. 

Dealing with the art of naval warfare, 
and involving in their treatment the hand- 
ling of a ship or ships in battle and the 
[137] 



The Naval War College 

distribution of the entire navy over the 
area of hostihties, the games afford an 
opportunity for the display of intellectual 
ability and skill that is equally interesting 
and beneficial to the gray-haired captain, 
who is a participant, and to his youthful 
junior, vs^ho is an interested spectator. 

The games are of three kinds — the 
Duel, or Single Ship Game, the Fleet 
Tactical Game, and the Strategic Game. 
Two ship commanders and an umpire 
play the Duel; two fleet commanders, 
two umpires, and an arbitrator, the Tacti- 
cal Game; and the Strategic Game re- 
quires a still larger force because of the 
more extensive operations it involves. 
The elaborate preparation and study 
required by the Tactical and especially by 
the Strategic Game are not needed in 
playing the Duel, although, of course, it 
demands closest attention and the employ- 
ment of the greatest skill. 

The Duel is played on a table covered 
with stretched paper upon which, during 
[138] 



By John Z). Long 

the engagement, the courses of the oppos- 
ing vessels, in blue and red, are plotted. 
To obtain mathematical accuracy, scale 
rulers, scale turning- cards, torpedo cards, 
and dice, which determine the chances in 
torpedo firing, are used, and to show the 
position of ships and the direction in 
which they are heading, each commander 
has at his hand a small model arranged 
for keeping gun-fire tally. These models 
represent battleships of the Iowa class, 
and are supposed to have batteries of four 
twelve-inch guns in two turrets, forward 
and aft, and eight eight-inch guns installed 
in pairs in turrets arranged quadrilaterally. 
The rate of speed and the maneuver- 
ing power of the opposing ships are fixed 
by pasteboard scales, which are chosen by 
lot. It is permissible for a player to 
operate his command at full or half speed, 
and he may stop, losing two and three 
minutes respectively as he changes from 
full to half speed or comes to a stop. 
The actual rate of fire maintained by 
[139] 



The Naval War College 

guns of the navy, and the chances of tor- 
pedo hits, are all carefully calculated so 
that there is no difficulty in determining 
the victor. The game may continue 
until the expiration of a fixed time, or 
until one of the ships is forced into neu- 
tral waters or is rammed or torpedoed. 

During the course of 1900 three Fleet 
Tactical Games were played, the central 
purpose underlying them being to obtain 
*'a definite value in some well-known 
unit for a given superiority of speed. ' ' 
As an illustration of a tactical study the 
following, one of the problems of the 
year, may be of interest : 

*' Coast Survey. Charts 111, 112, 113, 
114. 

'' October 1st. A blue fleet of three 
squadrons is ordered to guard the coast 
from Monomoy to The Race, assisted by 
three groups — twenty in each group — 
of the Mosquito Fleet. A red fleet of 
four squadrons is known to be approach- 
ing this section, intending to establish a 
[140] 



By John D, Long 

naval base at some point there, or to pass 
through The Race to some point in Long 
Island Sound. The blue admiral is di- 
rected to prevent the enemy from succeed- 
ing in any of these aims. How will he 
dispose his force to achieve this ? What 
will be his movements and plans ? " 

The Tactical Game is played on a soft 
pine board ten feet square, divided into 
twenty-five squares and representing a 
sea space of twelve miles square. Besides 
the board, the apparatus in use includes 
two fleets, red and blue respectively, of 
eight battleships each ; a gun-fire wand, 
marked on one side for broadside fire and 
on the other for end-on fire, which is 
equal to a distance of six thousand yards, 
within which vessels are considered as 
'*in action" ; a turning-scale, which is 
based on the curve of that made by the 
North Atlantic Squadron four years ago, 
and which outlines the course of the fleet 
when a change of direction is ordered ; a 
score card, metal rings, which are placed 
[141] 



The Naval War College 

on each ship to denote a reduction in 
gun-fire, and a hst of battle signals. 

When play begins each player hands 
the arbitrator two signals, one for the 
first and the other for the second move, 
and when the first is completed, the third 
signal must be handed to him, and so on 
until the game closes. The scoring be- 
gins when the opposing fleets are within 
six thousand yards of each other, and a 
ship is destroyed and the victor credited 
with one thousand points if she remain 
for twenty minutes in a position two thou- 
sand yards from her adversary. When 
the gun-fire of a vessel is reduced one 
half, and five hundred points are scored 
against her, a metal ring is placed upon 
her mast. Should the fleets come so 
near together as to make tactical maneu- 
vers impossible, the arbitrator announces 
"close action," and the vessels are then 
fought by their captains without further 
regard to fleet tactics, although either 
player may signal ' ' Follow movements 
[142] 



By John Z). Long 

of commander in chief, ' ' provided the 
flagship be the leading vessel. 

The Strategic Game, covering such a 
wide scope of operations, necessitates 
much preparation and close study. This 
is an example of a strategic situation : 

"A red fleet of ten battleships, six 
armored cruisers, ten protected cruisers, 
and five destroyers, convoying ten thou- 
sand men in forty vessels, including col- 
liers and supply vessels, leaves Halifax 
at 2 P.M. on June 16th. It has positive 
orders to seize Vineyard Haven and es- 
tablish a base there inside of three days. 
It is known that a blue fleet of five 
battleships, two armored cruisers, twenty 
cruisers, and about fifteen smaller vessels 
is at anchor inside Sandy Hook on June 
16th. Red, in order to win, must make 
his port without encountering a force 
one quarter his own at sea. Speed of 
convoy limited to nine knots. Weather 
good. Daylight 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. Time 
limit, noon, June 20th. ' ' 
[143] 



The Naval War College 

In the solution of this problem, the 
arbitrator occupies a central office and 
communicates with the players, stationed 
in separate rooms, by means of umpires. 
The arbitrator records on charts of the 
theater of operations the movements and 
positions of the opposing forces, deter- 
mines the time and duration of each 
move, and announces such decisions as 
may seem proper. Each commander 
in chief and commander of detached ves- 
sel is provided with charts upon which, 
in the discretion of the arbitrator, the 
positions of the hostiles are plotted. This 
game requires an exhaustive study of 
strategy, a close acquaintance with geog- 
raphy and hydrographical conditions, the 
careful framing of signals and orders, and 
to insure success, a comprehensive under- 
standing of the art of war. 

There is no longer any question as to 

the practical value of the Naval War 

College. The modern naval powers of 

continental Europe, as also Japan, have 

[144] 



By John JD, Long' 

followed the example of the United States 
in providing advanced studies in the art 
of war for the benefit of the officers of their 
respective services; and the agitation in 
the British navy for the creation of such 
a course is expected shortly to lead to its 
addition to the curriculum of the Naval 
College at Greenwich. 

It is easy to say that the great naval 
warriors of history won their victories 
without any such schooling ; but it must 
be remembered that they met men who 
also had not had it. They were at least 
as well trained as their foes. Nothing, 
of course, can ever supply the lack of 
brains, innate powers, and the gifts of 
nature. Dash and brilliancy are born, 
not made. But as it has been said, God 
is on the side of the heaviest battalions ; 
so the leader who adds to natural quali- 
ties the training of the school and 
the fruits of scientific study has the 
best chance of success. Of two "quick 
eyes" the one accustomed to aim the 
[145] 



How Our Soldiers are Fed 

gun barrel is the better. The man who 
"never set a squadron in the field' ' is at a 
disadvantage with the man who has prac- 
tised setting it, even on the field of a chart. 

The most important effect of the attend- 
ance of officers upon the course at Newport 
has been to awaken them to the imper- 
ative necessity of keeping step with the 
rapidly increasing inventions of mechani- 
cal science and of familiarity with their 
use. Officers of the American navy are 
not selected to command fleets merely 
because of seniority in rank ; and it there- 
fore behooves the service to fit each offi- 
cer to do his duty and to do it in time of 
emergency as an American naval officer 
should. 

The college furthermore has caused 
the study of various areas and possible 
campaigns, resulting in the preparation 
of plans contemplating the protection 
of the North Atlantic and Gulf coasts, 
the Pacific slope, and of our Pacific de- 
pendencies. 

[146] 



By John D, Long 

The preparation of these defensive 
plans has naturally familiarized officers 
with the strategical conditions of our 
own coasts, with the character of the 
waters along our shores, and with the 
facilities afforded by the various harbors. 
The war games of the college have taught 
them the wisest dispositions to make and 
the best methods of maneuvering ships 
and squadrons, and how most effectively 
to fight their machines when action 
comes. The international law problems 
they are called upon to solve in theory 
will confront them in reality as the 
American flag and the American citizen 
penetrate the most remote sections of 
the earth. 

Should war come, the country will 
find its honor safely guarded by a navy 
whose officers are not only inspired by 
its glorious and inciting memories, but 
who possess an intelligent understanding 
of the conditions that confront them, and 
who are prepared by their theoretical in- 
[147] 



The Naval War College 

struction to take practical advantage of 
every opportunity. The higher education, 
which has placed the United States in the 
front rank of intelligent nations, finds few 
finer illustrations than in the studies, the 
standards of education, and the accom- 
plishments of its naval officers. 



[148] 



K^AjpAU/E^»F E/D 




By Colonel William Carp Safiger, Jlssistant Secretftry of War. 




A.3;^HUT^ 



A Field Cook-House 



HOW OUR SOLDIEES 
AEE FED 

BY WILLIAM GARY SANGER 

ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF WAR 

FREDERIC THE GREAT, after 
years of experience in leading 
and fighting battles, said, *'The art of 
armies winning victories is lost without 
the art of feeding the troops. ' ' And a 
French general said with equal truth, 
''War may be summed up in two 
words: Bread and powder." 

The defeat of the enemy is the great 
end of war, but to attain this end the 
soldiers must be in such physical condi- 
tion that they can win the battles. The 
best armament, the ablest leadership, j 
[151] / 



How Our Soldiers are Fed 

even personal courage, will not save the 
force which is without the food necessary 
to support life. 

Wellington recognized the importance 
of keeping his men in good condition, 
and he said with proper pride that while 
many officers could lead men, he could 
feed them. 

After the death of Wellington, Eng- 
land, in a fit of economy, abolished the 
transport train which he had organized, 
and the record of the Crimean War tells 
that if the work of supplying the army 
is not well done, needless suffering will 
surely result. 

Sir Charles Dilke, in speaking of this 
war, said : ' ' Our most advanced outposts 
of the Crimea were never a full day's 
march from the sea, and it would have 
seemed to be a simple task to provide 
for the army in the field, yet the whole 
of our plans utterly broke down. The 
horses of the cavalry and artillery were 
destroyed by doing common transport 
[162] 



By William Cary Sanger 

work, for which they should never have 
been used, and the army of the richest 
nation in the world, commanding the 
seas, starved, almost within sight of its 
own ships, from want of proper arrange- 
ments as to food, rotted for lack of sani- 
tary provisions, and, from the absence of 
that care which is the business of a gen- 
eral staff, became a wreck of itself. ' ' 

There is a touch of pathos in the state- 
ment made by Lieut. Jose Muller y 
Tejeiro, second in command of the naval 
forces of the province of Santiago de 
Cuba, in a report on the battles and 
capitulation of Santiago, that ' ' if there 
had been flour and bacon the soldiers 
might not have become weakened and 
sick." 

The commissary and quartermaster de- 
partments are charged with the responsi- 
bility of procuring and getting to the 
troops the necessary supplies. It is of 
course comparatively simple to do this 
when the troops are in permanent camps, 
[153] 



How Our Soldiers are Fed 

but it is necessary that any fighting force 
should be ready to move at a moment's 
notice, and wherever the men go the 
supphes must follow. 

The magnitude of this work is illus- 
trated by some interesting facts which 
Colonel Sharpe of the commissary de- 
partment has collected in his prize essay 
on the art of supplying armies in the 
field. 

When Grant advanced upon Richmond 
after crossing . the Rapidan the troops 
numbered about one hundred and twenty- 
five thousand men. There were four 
thousand three hundred wagons, eight 
hundred and thirty -five ambulances, 
thirty thousand cavalry, ambulance, and 
team horses, four thousand private horses, 
and twenty-two thousand mules. Gen- 
eral Ingalls, on July 1, 1862, after an 
inspection of the Army of the Potomac, 
reported that it had three thousand one 
hundred wagons, three hundred and fifty 
ambulances, seventeen thousand five hun- 
[154] 



By William Cary Sanger 

dred horses, and eight thousand mules. 
In the Gettysburg campaign the trains 
numbered over four thousand heavy 
wagons. 

The German troops which invested 
Paris required daily the following sup- 
plies : Four hundred and forty- four thou- 
sand pounds of bread, one hundred and 
two thousand pounds of rice, five hun- 
dred and ninety-five oxen or one hundred 
and two thousand pounds of bacon, four- 
teen thousand four hundred pounds of 
salt, nine hundred and sixty thousand 
pounds of oats, two million four hundred 
thousand pounds of hay, twenty-eight 
thousand quarts of spirits, and a large 
supply of coffee and sugar. 

Colonel Woodruff, chief commissary 
of the Division of the Philippines, in a 
report from Manila for the year ending 
June 30, 1901, calls attention to the 
fact that *' the command to be supplied " 
extended from the great wall of China on 
the north to the Island of Borneo on the 
[155] 



How Our Soldiers are Fed 

south and the Island of Guam on the 
east. There were four hundred and 
eighty stations in this archipelago, besides 
the troops in China and the prisoners in 
Guam. 

''In addition to the sixty-eight thousand 
troops and the three thousand officers in 
this division, the subsistence department 
supplied the delicacies for the sick, rations 
for four thousand prisoners of war, one 
thousand eight hundred marines, many 
of the stores for the navy, rations for one 
thousand civilian employees, and sale 
stores for the army, navy, and marine 
officers, the Philippine Commission and 
attaches and Americans employed by the 
army and by the government in its treas- 
ury, post office, interior and educational 
departments, metropolitan police, native 
police and scouts, transports, etc. 

'' In other words, nearly one hundred 

thousand persons, occupying a country 

almost destitute of meat and vegetables, 

and other food supplies suitable for 

[156] 



Sy William Cary Sanger 

Americans, were supplied largely from a 
single base seven thousand miles distant. ' ' 

The problem of feeding an army suc- 
cessfully calls for the same kind of ability 
which is required in the management of 
any great business undertaking. There 
must be a well-organized plan in accord- 
ance with which the work is to be done, 
and the officers charged with this work 
must be possessed of executive ability 
and the capacity for successful administra- 
tive work. 

In the development of the great indus- 
trial and commercial interests which have 
marked the material progress of the 
world during the past century, adminis- 
trative methods have been so improved 
that great enterprises are now easily car- 
ried on, the magnitude of which in former 
times would have presented an insuper- 
able obstacle to success. There has also 
been a change in the nature of the prob- 
lems which have to be solved in the suc- 
cessful conduct of any great war. 
[157] 



How Our Soldiers are Fed 

The battlefield will always be the 
place where wars are decided, but more 
and more the work which is done before 
the clash of battle determines the result. 
Information must be secured as to the 
enemy's strength, resources, and move- 
ments ; proper preparation must be made 
for the organization and mobilization of 
the fighting force ; the men must be 
supplied with proper arms and ammuni- 
tion, and they must be suitably clothed ; 
but when all these details have been 
attended to, the success, even the very 
existence, of the army depends upon 
having it properly fed. 

In bygone centuries military forces 
were, almost without exception, fewer in 
numbers than the mighty hosts that are 
now assembled when war breaks out 
between great nations. The custom was 
almost universal for the soldiers to sup- 
ply their needs from the locality in which 
they happened to be. 

This had a double demerit. It failed 
[158] 



By William Cary Sanger 

in many instances to meet the needs of 
the forces, and hardly less important, it 
entailed indescribable hardship upon the 
people who happened to be in the vicin- 
ity of the camp. It was almost as great 
a misfortune in those days to have the 
friendly forces of the government pass 
through any portion of the country as to 
have the enemy invade the land. 

The habit of taking from the inhabi- 
tants all that was necessary for the main- 
tenance of the army naturally led to 
excesses in looting and plundering. 

When the Black Prince led his forces 
home through the south of France, 
through a country peaceable and friendly, 
he left behind him a dark trail of ruined 
farms and impoverished villages. The 
horses of his men were hardly able to 
carry the burden of plunder which their 
owners had collected. Therefore every 
reason of humanity, as well as of com- 
mon sense, has emphasized the impor- 
tance of a well-ordered and efficient 
[159] 



How Our Soldiers are Fed 

system for supplying troops in camp or 
in field. 

In the United States the President is 
the commander in chief of the land and 
naval forces, and while it is not expected, 
as in foreign countries, that he should 
himself take the field, the responsibility 
for the direction of the military work 
which is performed by the army must 
rest upon him. 

The Secretary of War, his personal 
representative in the Cabinet, is the 
official under whose direction the military 
work must be done. General officers 
are charged with the execution of such 
military operations as may be decided 
upon by the President as necessary for 
the successful conduct of the campaign. 

In the War Department there are the 
chiefs of bureaus, who, under the direc- 
tion of the Secretary of War, are re- 
sponsible for the conduct of the work 
pertaining to their several bureaus. 

The quartermaster general, through his 
[160] 



By William Cary Sanger 

officers and in cooperation with the gen- 
erals in command of the forces in the 
field, must provide transportation for the 
troops, forage for the horses, and tentage 
for the men ; the chief signal officer must 
see that proper arrangements are made 
for all needed signal stations, and the 
installment, when necessary, of the field 
telegraph line ; the surgeon general must 
care for the health of the troops, and the 
commissary general has the great and im- 
portant duty of providing the necessary 
supplies for officers and men. 

When it has been decided that troops 
are to assemble at any given point, an 
officer is selected to act as chief com- 
missary at the designated place. He is 
attached to the staff of the general 
commanding. 

Other officers of the commissary de- 
partment are designated as purchasing 
commissaries at the great cities, and in 
accordance with the directions sent them 
they buy the flour, beef, bacon, and 
[161] 



How Our Soldiers are Fed 

other articles necessary for the troops 
and send them to the designated camp 
or depot. 

There they are received by the com- 
missary officer, and by him, under the 
direction of the general commanding, 
distributed to the troops. 

The chief commissary with the troops 
from time to time sends to the commis- 
sary general the requisitions, as they are 
called, for the articles needed. These 
requisitions specify in detail the quan- 
tities and kinds of food which the troops 
should have. All these stores are in- 
voiced to the commissary, who, as he 
issues them to the other commissary 
officers, takes receipts for them. 

In this way accounts are kept which 
show just what is done with all the sup- 
plies which are purchased for the army. 
From the time the first purchase is made 
until the men receive their rations, offi- 
cers of the commissary department keep 
on their official records a statement of 
[162] 



Sy William Cary Sanger 

all property received by them and de- 
livered to the other commissary officers 
or to the troops. 

When an army in the field is on the 
march it must have a sufficient wagon- 
train with it to carry supplies as well as 
reserve ammunition. The wagon-train 
accompanying the troops must be con- 
tinually supplied by other wagon-trains 
in the rear, usually beyond the zone 
occupied by the troops. 

General Ingalls, the chief quartermas- 
ter of the army operating against Rich- 
mond, in one of his reports on the Civil 
War states that his main supply-trains 
were at least twenty-five miles in the 
rear of the troops and were never seen 
by them. 

If there is danger of raids or attacks 
from the enemy, the trains must be de- 
fended, and the work of supplying troops 
is proportionately increased. 

England had at one time in South 
Africa to supply her troops from a base 
[163] 



How Our Soldiers are Fed 

which was about six hundred miles away. 
About twelve years ago the army ser- 
vice corps was organized in England. 
This corps practically combines the duties 
which in our service devolve upon the 
commissary and quartermasters' depart- 
ments. It is virtually a reestablishment 
of the transport service which w^as or- 
ganized by the Duke of Wellington, and 
which was abolished before the Crimean 
War with such unfortunate results. Its 
work in South Africa has been generally 
commended. 

When in the field each man carries 
with him rations for a certain number of 
days, and in addition to this he carries 
at least one emergency ration. 

The articles which are issued to the 
soldier for his daily use are described as 
rations. The army regulations say : 

" A ration is the allowance for the sub- 
sistence of one person ' for one day, and 
varies in components according to the 
station of the troops or the nature of the 
[164] 



By William Gary Sanger 

duty performed, being severally known 
as the garrison ration, the field ration, the 
travel ration, and the emergency ration. 
The garrison ration is issued to troops in 
garrison or in permanent camps ; the field 
ration to troops in the field in active 
campaign; the travel ration to troops 
traveling otherwise than by marching, or 
when for short periods they are separated 
from cooking facilities; and the emer- 
gency ration to troops in active campaign 
for use on emergent occasions. ' ' 



The component parts of the different 
rations are set forth in detail in the army 
regulations and in orders. The regula- 
tions contain the following reference to 
the emergency ration : 

*' Troops in active campaign will be 
supplied with an emergency ration pre- 
pared under direction of the War Depart- 
ment, which will not be used at any 
time or place where regular rations are 
obtainable. It will be carried in the 

haversack or saddlebags, and accounted 

[165] 



How Our Soldiers are Fed 

for at inspection, etc. , by the soldier. It 
will not be opened except by order of an 
officer or in extremity. If improperly 
opened or lost, the money value will be 
charged against the soldier. ' ' The emer- 
gency ration as at present prepared con- 
sists of three cakes of chocolate, composed 
of equal parts of chocolate and sugar, 
weighing one and one third ounces each, 
making a total weight of chocolate of 
four ounces; eight ounces of cracked 
parched wheat, and four ounces of desic- 
cated meat, all in three cakes of four 
ounces each. This makes the weight of 
the emergency ration one pound, exclu- 
sive of the can in which it is carried. 
The ordinary field ration weighs about 
three pounds. 

As the rations which the soldiers carry 
are consumed they are replenished from 
the wagon-trains which follow the troops. 
When conditions permit, the cooking for 
the entire company is done at one time 
and by men detailed for that purpose. 
[166] 



JSy William Cary Sanger 

When this is impossible, either a few 
men join together for the preparation of 
their rations, or, if necessary, each man 
can prepare his own rations, as he carries 
a knife, fork, spoon, cup, and meat-can. 
The cup may be used to boil his coffee, 
and the meat-can may be used as a fry- 
ing pan. 

The medical department has a school 
for teaching the members of the hospital 
corps to cook for the sick, and at the last 
session of Congress an appropriation was 
furnished for this purpose. The com- 
missary general has urged that a similar 
appropriation be rnade for the training of 
army cooks. 

One of the many reasons why Napo- 
leon's soldiers were so devoted to him 
was that he was always watchful of their 
physical welfare. He wrote to Intend- 
ant- General Daru: *' It 4s impossible to 
employ too many means for furnishing us 
with provisions. Everything lies in that. 
. . • My situation depends on food ; 
[167] 



How Our Soldiers are Fed 

victorious when I have it, uneasy when 
I am without it. . . . Do not spare 
money in purchasing medicine ; purchase 
wine. See that the hospitals are not 
without it. " 

And our own officers, following one of 
the best of the army traditions, have 
always shown an intense personal inter- 
est in the physical welfare of their men. 
The American people have always been 
anxious to have their soldiers receive 
the best of care, and when troops from 
all the countries of the civilized world 
assembled in China, it was found that 
the commissary supplies which were 
provided for the American troops ex- 
ceeded in quantity those issued to the 
forces of any other country. It is the 
settled policy of the country that every 
possible facility should be given our offi- 
cers, by proper training and experience 
before war comes, to prepare themselves 
for the duties which they will then have 
to perform. 

[168] 



HO^V THE ARMY IS CLOTHED 

Qu General JZIZadittgton, Quat^ejmtAater^Generat.C^.'S.A. 



HOW THEAEMY IS 
CLOTHED 

BY GENERAL M. I. LUDINGTON 

QUARTERMASTER GENERAL, U.S.A. 

SOON after a young man enlists in 
the United States Army at a re- 
cruiting station, he is transferred to a re- 
cruiting rendezvous, where he is outfitted 
with the necessary articles of clothing 
preparatory to joining the organization to 
which he may be assigned. From that 
time until the termination of his service, 
wherever he may be serving, the govern- 
ment provides for him all the essential 
details of dress from head to foot. This 
is regulated by the grant to him of an 
annual money allowance, to be drawn in 
[171] 



How the Army is Clothed 

clothing as his needs may require during 
the term of his enlistment, which is now 
fixed at three years. 

This money allowance is based upon 
the aggregate cost of a fixed list of 
articles for the first, second, and third 
years, respectively. The list of articles is 
the same for privates and for all grades 
of noncommissioned officers, except that 
gold lace and cloth chevrons and trousers 
stripes are added for noncommissioned 
officers. 

There is some variation in the money 
allowance for clothing for the cavalry, 
artillery, and infantry arms, and other 
organizations of the army, due to the 
difference in cost of hat trimmings and 
ornaments and coat facings ; but the aver- 
age allowance now for a private is sixty- 
nine dollars and twelve cents for the first 
year, thirty-two dollars and thirty cents 
for the second year, and twenty-nine 
dollars and forty-seven cents for the third 
year, making a total of one hundred and 
[172] 



By General M. 1. Ludington 

thirty dollars and eighty-nine cents for 
the three years. 

This allowance is increased for non- 
commissioned officers by the cost of 
chevrons and stripes, averaging from two 
dollars to eleven dollars for the first year, 
two dollars to three dollars for the second 
year, and one dollar and fifty cents to two 
dollars for the third year. 

About five sixths of the allowance for 
the first year is authorized to be drawn 
within six months after the soldier's 
enlistment, and includes certain articles of 
dress expected to last him through the 
whole three years of his service. It is 
to be understood that the allowance for 
clothing is separate and distinct from the 
soldier's pay allowance. 

A clothing account book is kept by each 
company, troop, and battery commander, 
in which the soldier signs a receipt for 
every article received. The clothing ac- 
count of the soldier is settled six months 
after the date of his enlistment, and 
[173] 



How the Army is Clothed 

thereafter on June 30th and December 
31st of each year. If, at these settlements, 
it is found that clothing has been drawn 
in excess of the money allowance for the 
period, the amount in excess is charged 
upon the muster rolls and pay rolls, and 
is deducted at the next pay day from 
the amount due the soldier on account of 
his pay allowance. Any balance due the 
soldier at such settlements, on account of 
clothing undrawn, remains to his credit 
on the clothing account book, to be 
drawn in clothing afterwards if required, 
or, if not, the final balance due at the 
date of his discharge from the service is 
paid to him by the paymaster. 

In the army as in civil life, some men 
are more careful of their clothing than 
others, hence at the end of their enlist- 
ment some soldiers have considerable 
savings to their credit, while others have 
little or no clothing money due, or are in 
debt on such accoimt. 

Only the actual average cost of the 
[174] 



By General M. L Ludington 

clothing at the place of purchase or man- 
ufacture is charged to the soldier, and in 
case his clothing is destroyed as a sanitary 
measure to prevent infection, the articles 
are replaced free of charge ; or in case of 
loss by fire or flood while he is engaged 
in saving government property, he is 
paid the value of his authorized clothing, 
which may have been lost. 

No allowance for clothing is made to 
commissioned officers. They are required 
to clothe themselves entirely at their 
own expense. They are, however, privi- 
leged to purchase at cost prices such 
articles of the soldier's clothing as they 
may need, and during campaign service 
they avail themselves of this privilege to 
a considerable extent. 

Before the war with Spain, when the 
army consisted of twenty-five thousand 
men, located at the various stations in 
the United States only, no great differ- 
ence in the variety of the clothing issued 
was necessary, but now the clothing sup- 
[175] 



How the Army is Clothed 

ply involves a wide range in kinds and 
weights of articles. For use in Alaska 
there are supplied, in addition to the 
heaviest class of woolen army clothing, 
fur gauntlets and caps, and blanket-lined 
overcoats, such articles as German socks 
(to be worn with arctic overshoes), sweat- 
ers, Mackinaw overcoats, oilskin coats and 
trousers, moccasins and shoe pacs ; while 
in Cuba, Porto Rico, and especially in 
the Philippines, light cotton garments 
for both outer and under wear are 
required. 

It can readily be understood that in 
order to have a supply of clothing always 
available for issue to our army, the 
needs must be anticipated a long time 
in advance, and due provision made to 
meet them by laying in at our clothing 
depots a large stock of the various ma- 
terials required for the manufacture of 
garments. 

During and since the war with Spain a 
new class of garments, made from a twilled 



By General M. I. Ludington 

cotton goods called * * khaki, ' ' has come 
into use in our army to a very large extent. 
This is the kind of goods the English 
army, serving in warm climates, has used 
for a number of years past. It is dyed a 
peculiar yellow shade, which may be said 
to be an earth color, and is of a weight and 
texture suited to comfort and hard usage 
in tropical and semitropical countries. A 
soldier dressed in a khaki suit, with leg- 
gings of the same color and tan-colored 
shoes and campaign hat or khaki- colored 
helmet, presents a very neat appearance. 

Until within three years past this khaki 
material was not used in this country; 
few people knew about it, and it had 
never been manufactured in the United 
States. Now it is in almost universal use 
by our troops in the Philippines, Cuba, 
and Porto Rico, and an excellent quality 
is manufactured in this country in large 
quantities. 

When Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Phil- 
ippine Islands were occupied by ouy 

tm:j 



How the Army is Clothed 

army, it became necessary to establish 
large issuing depots at Havana, San Juan, 
and Manila, from which supplies could be 
promptly distributed to the various mili- 
tary posts and stations in those islands. 
On account of the large withdrawal of 
troops from Porto Rico and Cuba, the 
issuing depots in those islands have been 
reduced to small proportions, but the 
large issuing depot at Manila is still nec- 
essarily maintained. 

When in garrison in the United States 
the soldier is required to have certain 
articles of dress uniform, which are worn 
on occasions of ceremony or parade; he 
is also provided with other garments for 
ordinary wear and undress duty, and, 
in addition, a working suit of brown 
canvas. When engaged in a campaign or 
other duty in the field only the undress 
uniform is worn. 

The National Guard forces of the 
several States and Territories are now 
uniformed like the regular troops serving 
[178] 



By General M. I, Ludington 

in this country in the matter of undress 
uniform. This similarity of campaign 
dress is important as in case of any great 
emergency, calling the whole military 
force of the country together, all would 
be found uniformed alike. 

Congress makes an annual appropria- 
tion of one million dollars for support of 
the National Guard, and this is allotted to 
the several States and Territories and the 
District of Columbia according to the 
National Guard strength of each, and can 
be drawn in ordnance or any uniform 
clothing or quartermaster supplies needed. 
A good proportion of the allotment is 
drawn in clothing, and this is supplied 
from our army clothing depots of the 
same kinds and quality furnished to the 
regular army. 

The clothing and other stores drawn 
under this allotment remain the property 
of the United States, and are accounted 
for annually to the War Department by 
the governor of the State or Territory, or 
[179] 



tiow the Army is Clothed 

by the commanding general of the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. 

It can be confidently stated that no 
better quality and no greater quantity and 
variety are supplied to the army of any 
country than are furnished to our own 
army. Officers connected with the China 
Relief Ejcpedition, who had full oppor- 
tunity of contrasting the equipment of 
the different allied armies, report that 
our troops were better clothed, especially 
for the winter, than those of the other 
nations. 



[180] 



GOOD manner;! 
W ^ " fa>i THE hon: 



F£x.-S&cret€trj/m\^ of ^tata 



lND diplomac 




East End of the New White House 



GOOD MANNEES AND 
DIPLOMACY 

BY WILLIAM R. DAY 

EX-SECRETARY OF STATE 

AN incident is told of a trader who, 
believing himself deceived and 
cheated by those in whom he had had 
confidence, exlaimed, * ' Well, this is 
diplomacy 1 " 

It is not uncommon to think of diplo- 
macy as a profession for which duplicity 
is the chief qualification, and this impres- 
sion has probably been strengthened by 
the frequent quotation of Wotton's defi- 
nition of an ambassador as "an honest 
man sent to lie abroad for the common- 
wealth." 

[183] 



Good Manners and Diplomacy 

Permanent ambassadors to foreign 
courts are said to have originated with 
Louis XI of France, whose reign ended 
in 1483. His purpose was not so much 
to have business representatives abroad 
as to have the benefit of chartered spies 
at the court of each of his powerful neigh- 
bors. *' By the middle of the seven- 
teenth century, " says Lawrence in his 
treatise on International Law, '*it had 
become recognized as the regular manner 
of carrying on diplomatic intercourse. 
But it had to win its way against a mass 
of jealousy and suspicion, largely caused 
by the unscrupulous character of the early 
diplomatists. ' If they lie to you, lie 
still more to them,' said Louis XI to 
his ambassadors. ' ' 

However well this method of conduct- 
ing foreign intercourse would serve for 
the day in which it was adopted, the 
world has made such progress that fair- 
ness and candor are now as essential to 
success in a diplomatic capacity as in any 
[184] 



By William R, Day 

of the private walks of life. A country 
could not do itself any worse service in 
the modern courts of nations than to 
send or to retain a representative whose 
personal character was not above reproach 
and whose word could not be implicitly 
relied upon. 

It is, of courses necessary that diplo- 
matic agents should be familiar with 
the customs, practice, and special forms 
which are used in diplomatic intercourse. 
The business of nations, no less than 
the conduct of parliamentary bodies 
and the transaction of legal business in 
the courts, is best conducted with some 
regard for the essential customs and 
usages which have been established. But 
observance of ceremonial requirements is 
one thing, and that kind of good manners 
which comes from kindliness of feeling 
and sincerity of purpose is quite another. 
A moment's reflection will show how 
utterly ruinous it would be for a repre- 
sentative of a nation to depart fiom 
[185] 



Good Manners and Diplomacy 

candor and fairness in an important 
negotiation. Not only would the 
personal relations and social standing 
so important to his success be de- 
stroyed, but his country might be 
involved in serious complications, if not 
in war. 

Young men in this country who con- 
template a diplomatic career, which 
may some day be a possibility in Ameri- 
can life, should adopt the suggestions 
found in a passage in Wharton's Inter- 
national Law, taken from Bernard on 
Diplomacy : 

That diplomacy has been deeply tainted with 
the vices of dissimulation and falsehood is cer- 
tain. Secret treaties, and still more secret arti- 
cles to published treaties, are in the nature of 
lies ; for a treaty is essentially a public engage- 
ment, and to publish a part as a whole, keeping 
the remainder undisclosed, is to palm off an im- 
position upon Europe. And yet the arguments 
for truth and openness in international affairs are 
plain and irresistible. Without them there can 
[186] 



By JVilliam B. Day 

be no confidence, and on the confidence which a 
diplomatist inspires his whole success depends. 
. . . "In politics, ' ' says Segur, ' ' and in stormy 
times, the true dexterity is a courageous faith. 
Character saves men from the dangers on which 
subtlety makes shipwrecks, and firm sincerity 
alone can give solidity to success or dignify mis- 
fortune. " "It is scarcely necessary to say," 
wrote Lord Malmesbury among the suggestions 
which, late in life, he sent to a young man just 
entering the profession, "that no occasion, no 
provocation, no anxiety to rebut an unjust ac- 
cusation, no idea, however tempting, of promot- 
ing the object you have in view, can need, much 
less justify, a falsehood. Success obtained by 
one is a precarious and baseless success. Detec- 
tion would not only ruin your reputation for- 
ever, but deeply wound the honor of your court. 
If, as frequently happens, an indiscreet ques- 
tion which seems to require a distinct answer 
is put to you by an artful minister, parry 
it by treating it as an indiscreet question, or 
get rid of it by a grave and serious look, 
but on no account contradict the assertion flatly 
if it be true, or admit it if false and of a 
dangerous tendency. ' ' 

[187] 



Good Manners and Diplomacy 

While this should be the rule of con- 
duct of one in the foreign service, it does 
not mean that the established usage and 
ceremony of official residence and conduct 
should be disregarded. The American 
representatives are instructed to observe 
as far as practicable these rules and usages 
in the country of their residencCc 

At the present day the diplomatic 
representatives of the United States are 
forbidden to wear any kind of uniform or 
official costume which has not been previ- 
ously authorized by Congress. This pro- 
hibition has broken up the practice of 
wearing court dress on ceremonial occa- 
sions abroad. The only departure per- 
mitted has been in allowing officers *' who 
have served during the Rebellion as 
volunteers in the armies of the United 
States, and who have been, or may here- 
after be, honorably mustered out of the 
volunteer service, to bear the official title 
and, upon occasions of ceremony, to wear 
the uniform of the highest giade they 



By William R. Day 

have held by brevet or other commissions 
in the volunteer service. ' ' 

This indicates a considerable change in 
our practice, even from the days of 
Jacksonian simplicity. When General 
Jackson was President, Mr. Van Buren, 
his Secretary of State, in a letter to one 
of our ministers sent the following in- 
structions : 

From a suitable respect to what is understood 
to be the usage at the several courts of Europe, 
requiring the members of the diplomatic body 
accredited to them to wear a court dress upon 
established occasions, such as their presentation 
to the sovereigns, or chief executive officers of 
these governments, respectively, etc., the Presi- 
dent thought fit to adopt the following as the 
dress to be used by our ministers and other dip- 
lomatic agents upon all such occasions, which is 
recommended as well by its comparative cheap- 
ness as its adaptation to the simplicity of our 
institutions, viz. : A black coat with a gold star 
on each side of the collar, near its termination ; 
the underclothes to be black, blue, or white, 
[189] 



Good Manners and Diplomacy 

at the option of the wearer, a three-cornered 
chapeau de bras, a black cockade and eagle, and 
a steel-mounted sword with a white scabbard. 
It is to be understood, however, that the use of 
this particular dress is not prescribed by the 
President. It is barely suggested by his direc- 
tion as an appropriate and a convenient uniform 
dress for the use of our ministers and other dip- 
lomatic agents of the United States. 

When Mr. Buchanan was at the Court 
of St. James, in 1854, he had great 
difficulty in adjusting his costume to 
the requirements of the English court. 
In a letter to his niece. Miss Lane, he 
said: 

The dress question, after much difficulty, has 
been finally and satisfactorily settled. I ap- 
peared at the levee on Wednesday last in just 
such a dress as I have worn at the President's 
one hundred times : — a black coat, white 
waistcoat and cravat, and black pataloons and 
dress boots, with the addition of a very plain 
black-handled and black-hilted dress sword. 
This to gratify those who have yielded so much, 
[190] 



By William R. Day 

and to distinguish me from the upper court ser- 
vants. I knew that I would be l-eceived in any 
dress I might wear, but could not have antici- 
pated that I should be received in so kind and 
distinguished a manner. Having yielded, they 
did not do things by halves. As I approached 
the queen an arch but benevolent smile lit up 
her countenance as much as to say, '' You are 
the first man who ever appeared before me at 
court in such a dress, ' ' I confess that I never 
felt more proud of being an American than when 
I stood in that brilliant circle " in the simple 
dress of an American citizen." 

The curious will find an interesting 
history of court costumes as worn by the 
officials of the United States in Mr. 
Fish's note to Mr. Jay, quoted in Whar- 
ton's International Law. What would 
have been thought of the American repre- 
sentatives at the making of the recent 
Treaty of Paris, had they appeared in the 
costume adopted by the members of the 
commission sent to Ghent in 1814, to 
make peace with Great Britain I There 
[191] 



Good Manners and Diplomacy 

each commissioner agreed to wear *'a 
blue coat, slightly embroidered with 
gold, with white breeches, white silk 
stockings, and gold knee buckles and 
shoe buckles, a sword, a small cocked 
hat with a black cockade. For grand 
occasions the uniform was made some- 
what richer." So well did Mr. John 
Quincy Adams think of this apparel 
that in 1823, when Secretary of State, 
he commended it to our ministers abroad 
and sent them a description and engraved 
plate. 

Important as suaviter in modo is to the 
transaction of diplomatic business, the 
successful career of John Quincy Adams, 
one of the foremost of American diploma- 
tists, illustrates the necessity of the pos- 
session of the sterner qualities of courage, 
self-reliance, and continuity of purpose. 
In the negotiation of the treaty for the 
cession of Florida, Mr. Adams was en- 
gaged in almost constant negotiation with 
Don Onis for more than two years. 
[192] 



By William R, Day 

Declining the mediation of Great Britain, 
Mr. Adams remained firm in his purpose 
until the treaty was accomplished. Mr. 
Morse says, in his '* Life of John Quincy 
Adams ' ' : 

Had he been a mathematican solving a problem 
in dynamics, he could not have better measured 
the precise line to which the severe pressure of 
Spanish difficulties would compel Don Onis to 
advance. This line he drew sharply, and tak- 
ing his stand upon it in the beginning, he made 
no important alterations in it to the end. Day 
by day the Spaniard would reluctantly approach 
toward him at one point or another, solemnly 
protesting that he could not make another move, 
by argument and entreaty almost imploring Mr. 
Adams in turn to advance and meet him. But 
Mr. Adams stood rigidly still, sometimes not a 
little vexed by the other's lingering maneuvers, 
and actually once saying to the courtly Spaniard 
that he ' ' was so wearied out with the discussion 
that it had become nauseous " ; and again, that 
he " really could discuss no longer and had given 
it up in despair." Yet all the while he was 
never wholly free from anxiety concerning the 
[ 193 ] 



Good Manners and Diplomacy 

accuracy of his calculations as to how soon the 
Don might on his side also come to a final stand. 
Many a tedious and alarming pause there was, 
but after each halt progress was in time renewed. 
At last the consummation was reached, and, ex- 
cept in the matter of the Sabine boundary, no 
concession even in details had been made by Mr. 
Adams. 

It is quite possible that the War of 
1812 might have been avoided had an 
English minister of that time exhibited 
more tact and courtesy in dealing with 
the differences between the nations. 
Certainly the conduct and personal bear- 
ing of a British diplomatist did much 
to bring about the ill feeling which re- 
sulted in war. 

When the attack on the Chesapeake by 
the Leopard in 1807 led to President 
Jefferson's demand for reparation and 
apology from Great Britain, the English 
minister then in power sent David Mon- 
tagu Erskine, son of Lord Erskine, with 
a view to a settlement of the complications 
[194] 



By William R, Day 

arising from the affair and the restrictions 
on commerce. Such were the kindly 
manner and concihatory conduct of Mr. 
Erskine, and his sincere desire to bring 
about friendly relations between the coun- 
tries, that he concluded to recommend the 
repeal of the restrictive orders and repara- 
tion for the attack on the Chesapeake. 
On this side there was hearty commen- 
dation of the manner in which the Presi- 
dent had met these friendly overtures. 
Unfortunately for both countries, the 
British ministry declined to ratify Mr. 
Erskine 's convention and recalled the 
minister. 

In his place the British government 
sent to America a Mr. Francis J. Jackson, 
whose chief recommendation had been his 
arrogant and overbearing demeanor in the 
negotiations with Denmark, which had 
given him the name of ''Copenhagen 
Jackson." No sooner did he arrive in 
America than he changed the conciliatory 
conduct which had been observed by Mr. 
[195] 



Good Manners and Diplomacy 

Erskine, and began a series of overbearing 
acts toward the President and the people 
of the capital. He charged this govern- 
ment with falsehood and duplicity, and 
when he was not entertained in the 
manner which he deemed suitable to his 
dignity, he left the seat of government, 
visited Baltimore, and then went to New 
York, alleging fears that he should be 
mobbed at the capital. At public dinners 
he gave toasts insulting to the govern- 
ment of the United States. In short, 
he did everything in his power to 
irritate and arouse the resentment of the 
United States. It cannot be doubted 
that this arrogant treatment, in direct 
contrast to the dignified bearing of Mr. 
Erskine, did much to bring about the 
feeling between the nations which led 
to war. 

This government has been peculiarly 

fortunate in its representatives in foreign 

missions, notwithstanding the fact that 

our ambassadors and ministers have been 

[196] 



By William E. Day 

uniformly underpaid and remain in the 
service at great sacrifice of their personal 
estates. 

The consular service of the United 
States, in spite of the spoils system, has 
many representatives who have been a 
credit to their country, and who have done 
much to promote its interests abroad. It 
is universally conceded that the American 
Consular Reports are among the best, 
if not the best, anywhere published. 
This does not mean that the American 
service would not be improved if it 
were put upon a more adequate basis, if 
better salaries were given, and if pro- 
motion were made to follow upon efficient 
service. 

It is to be hoped that a bill may some 
day be passed by Congress which will 
enable the educated American, trained by 
service in the lower grades of his calling, 
to find a useful and honorable career in 
the foreign service of his country. Such 
an American will have no trouble with 
[197] 



Good Manners and Diplomacy 

ceremonial observances. The habits of 
poUteness, consideration for others, cour- 
tesy, and self-restraint, which are the 
pride of the American home, will be found 
all-sufficient for conduct abroad. 



[198] 



HOW FOREIGN TREATIES ARE MADE 

hy Henry Cabot Lodge 

Senator ^rom Massachusetts 




Henry Cabot Lodge 



HOW FOREIGN 
TREATIES ARE MADE 

BY HENRY CABOT LODGE 

SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS 

WE all know how important our 
relations with our neighbors are 
in daily life. Those next door to us in- 
terest us most, but all our neighbors are 
of importance, because what they do in 
their houses or on their lands affects us 
also. Thus it comes about that the law 
provides carefully for a man's rights in 
his own property, and with equal watch- 
fulness sees to it that in exercising those 
rights he shall not do so in such a way as 
to injure any one else. 

Nations in this respect are like individ- 
[201] 



How Foreign Treaties are Made 

uals. They, too, have near neighbors 
and distant ones, and with all they have 
relations which are of the utmost import- 
ance. There is a body of law known as 
international law, the outgrowth of time 
and custom, which defies the rights of 
nations in regard to one another, and to 
which, as men have grown wiser, more 
and more heed and obedience have been 
paid. But there is one important distinc- 
tion between the law which governs the 
relations of individual men to each other 
and that which is known as the law of 
nations. 

In the former case the law has what is 
known as a sanction ; that is, there is a 
power behind it, that of the State, capable 
of enforcing it and of punishing those 
who disobey it. In the case of nations 
there is no such power. No nation can 
be obliged to obey the body of custom 
known as international law, and it cannot 
be punished for violating its principles, 
except by war. After the downfall of 
[202] 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

the Roman Empire, and during the long 
period of disorder and confusion which 
followed, the only law practically among 
nations was the law of the strongest. 
The code was that of Rob Roy : 

That he should take who had the power. 
And he should keep who can. 

With the spread of education and the 
advance of what we call civilization, na- 
tions have drawn away more and more 
from this primitive code, and interna- 
tional law has grown up out of the effort 
to find certain general principles by which 
nations should live and try in some 
measure to avoid constant recourse to 
war. For the same objects, but by 
methods far older than our modern sys- 
tem of international law nations made 
special arrangements with each other 
which were set forth in writing and sol- 
emnly sealed and signed by the represen- 
tatives of the nations concerned. 

These agreements were for every con- 
[ 203 ] 



How Foreign Treaties are Made 

ceivable purpose ; sometimes binding the 
two or more nations that signed to fight 
together against a common foe, some- 
times to make peace with each other, 
again to settle a disputed boundary, the 
ownership of territory, the methods of 
trade, or the rights of the citizens of each 
country to visit and live in the other. 
These agreements between nations are 
commonly known as treaties. 

They resemble in their nature the con- 
tracts and agreements for the sale or 
lease of houses or lands and for many 
other purposes, which men and women 
are making under legal forms in every- 
day life. But here again there is an 
important distinction. The State is be- 
hind the law and can enforce the execu- 
tion of contracts between individuals, but 
nothing can enforce a treaty between 
nations except the good faith of the 
nations which agree to it, or the superior 
power of one of the nations and its ability 
to defeat the other in war. 
[204] 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

Countless treaties have been made 
among nations, and sooner or later, as 
history shows, most of them have been 
broken, although quite often they have 
had lasting results. As civilization has 
advanced, the desire to keep treaties and 
observe their provisions has, however, 
steadily increased. Nations have come 
to hold treaties as more and more sacred, 
and the opinion of the world against 
breaking them has become constantly 
stronger. 

It is easy to see, when we think of it, 
how very important treaties are, and how 
much their importance has increased in 
modern times. Agreements which bind 
nations to make war and peace, which 
may dispose of a nation's possessions or 
add to them, and which affect the rights 
of the citizens of a country, are of the 
utmost gravity and the most far-reaching 
results. Therefore the authority to make 
the treaties which thus bind the nation 
and settle its relation with all other na- 
[205] 



How Foreign Treaties are Made 

tions is one of the greatest among the 
powers of government. 

It is one of the highest attributes of a 
sovereign and independent nation. In 
England it is a royal prerogative in 
theory, descending from the days when 
the king was the sole representative of 
the country and practically all-powerful. 
Therefore the king or queen, acting 
through the ministers, has the power to 
make treaties, and it is one of the great- 
est powers of the crown, although in 
reality the treaty is now made, not by 
the king but by the ministry, which is 
a committee of the two Houses of Parlia- 
ment acting in his name. 

In most European countries the power 
to make treaties is actually, as well as in 
name, in the hands of the sovereign ; and 
even in England, where all power has 
passed to Parliament, the old form, as 
has just been said, is still preserved. 

In the United States we have a treaty- 
making power like all other nations, and 
[206] 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

as the people are sovereign here, that 
power has been given by them to those 
chosen to represent them. Every Amer- 
ican boy and girl should understand how 
and by whom our government is carried 
on, and especially ought they to know 
about the great powers exercised by their 
government. Of these powers that of 
treaty-making is one of the greatest, and 
should be thoroughly understood. 

Perhaps every one understands it now, 
although from some of the discussions 
which we have had lately about our arbi- 
tration treaty with England, I have been 
led to believe that there are a good many 
people in the United States besides boys 
and girls to whom a little explanation on 
this point would not be unprofitable. 

All the great powers of our national 
government are fixed and defined by the 
Constitution. And it is well to remem- 
ber that one of the chief causes which led 
to the adoption of the Constitution was 
the absolute impossibility of dealing with 
[207] 



How Foreign Treaties are Made 

other nations in any way except by a 
single central government. It was out 
of the question for thirteen different 
States to enter separately into treaties 
with other nations, or to make war or 
peace with them. 

Therefore, there was no thought in the 
mind of any man, when we were framing 
our national Constitution, not even of 
the most extravagant advocate of state 
rights, but that everything which con- 
cerned our relations with other nations 
must be put under the control of the 
national government. This being agreed, 
the next point was to settle just how 
those powers were to be exercised. 

At that time these treaty-making pow- 
ers everywhere belonged to the crown; 
that is, to the executive head of each 
nation. But although the men who 
framed the Constitution desired to make 
a strong and efficient government, we 
had just come out of a war against the 
English crown, and there was a deep- 
[208] 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

rooted jealousy of executive power. The 
makers of the Constitution wisely gave 
large powers to the President, who is our 
executive head, but they limited him in 
many directions, and they had no inten- 
tion of conferring on him all the powers 
exercised by kings and emperors in Europe. 

For this reason they gave the authority 
to make war, the greatest and gravest of 
all powers, exclusively to Congress, the 
immediate representative of the people. 
This was comparatively simple, but when 
they came to the question of treaties they 
had a much more difficult problem. 

They saw very plainly that in practice 
the making of treaties could not be con- 
veniently carried on by a large body like 
Congress. They knew that this was work 
which could be well performed only by 
one man or his agents selected for that 
purpose. At the same time they desired 
to limit the power, and they also felt 
that while the President, representing 
the whole people, should have his part 
[ 209 ] 



How Foreign Treaties are Made 

in making a treaty, the several States 
ought also to have something to say 
about it. 

They were a very wise and able body 
of men, these makers of the Constitution 
of the United States; no wiser or abler, 
indeed, were ever gathered together to 
frame a system of government, a fact 
which it is well not to forget when we 
consider what they did. After much 
discussion they decided to put the treaty- 
making power in the hands of the Presi- 
dent, representing the whole body of the 
people, and of the Senate, representing 
the States. The clause in the Constitu- 
tion which expresses this is simple and 
direct, and is as follows: 

He [the President] shall have power, by and 
with the advice and consent of the Senate, to 
make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Sen- 
ators present concur. 

The Constitution further provides that 
all cases arising under treaties shall come 
[210] 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

within the jurisdiction of the courts, of 
the United States, and also that: 

All treaties made, or which shall be made, 
under the authority of the United States, shall 
be the supreme law of the land ; and the judges 
in every State shall be bound thereby, anything 
in the constitution or laws of any State to the 
contrary notwithstanding. 

By this last clause it will be seen how 
important treaties are and what sanctity 
the makers of the Constitution conferred 
upon them, for they declared that when 
once entered into, they should be not 
only the law of the land but that no 
State could affect them by any provisions 
in its constitution or laws. 

That, however, which interests us here 
is the first clause, which defines how 
treaties shall be made, and we see that 
they are to be made by the President 
and Senate together. Mr. George Tick- 
nor Curtis, in his great work on '*The 
Constitution of the United States," says 
[211] 



How Foreign Treaties are Made 

that the Senate has the power under the 
word * * advice ' ' to initiate a treaty, and 
that this has been done in a few cases; 
in other words, he holds that the Senate, 
under the Constitution, has the power to 
advise the President to make a certain 
treaty, if he thinks it desirable. 

But in practice this construction has 
been abandoned, for a numerous body is 
not suited to the work of beginning or 
carrying on negotiations with another 
country. Therefore the duty of propos- 
ing and entering upon treaties has come 
to be wholly in the hands of the Presi- 
dent. 

The methods pursued in practice are 
the same in all cases, and I will now trace 
briefly the various stages in the making 
of a treaty which is to fix the relations of 
the United States with some other coun- 
try, and which, when adopted, becomes 
a part of the law of the land. 

Treaties, as I have said, are on all sorts 
of subjects, from making peace, as we 
[212] . 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

did with England after the War of 1812, 
or with Mexico after the Mexican War, 
to the settlement of claims for money by 
citizens or agreements for postal arrange- 
ments, which are now usually in the form 
of conventions and made by the Presi- 
dent without reference to the Senate. I 
will take as an example of the making of 
a treaty one of the kind which is com- 
monly known as an extradition treaty. 

Treaties of this class provide for the 
surrender of criminals by one country 
to another. If an American commits a 
crime in the United States and flies to 
another country, it is very desirable, in 
order to serve the ends of justice, that 
arrangements should be made to get him 
back here for trial and punishment; and 
it is for this purpose that treaties of ex- 
tradition have been made. We will sup- 
pose, now, that the United States desires 
to make a treaty of extradition with the 
Argentine Republic of South America, 
and that they desire to make one with us. 
[213] 



Haw Foreign Treaties are Made 

Our Secretary of State suggests to the 
representative of the Argentine Repubhc 
that it would be desirable to have a treaty 
of extradition between the two countries, 
or the suggestion is made by the Argen- 
tine Republic to us. If this suggestion 
is acceptable to both sides, the President 
then empowers the Secretary of State to 
make the treaty with the Minister of the 
Argentine Republic in Washington, or 
else he empowers our Minister at Buenos 
Ay res to make a treaty with their Secre- 
tary of State there. 

The persons thus authorized to make 
the treaty then meet and exchange their 
powers, as it is called ; that is, they show 
each other the authority which they have 
to make the treaty. They then discuss 
the points which it is desired to cover, 
offer projects and rough draftSj and after 
much discussion the terms of the treaty 
are agreed tOo This is always a very 
difficult and important work, for it is a 
serious matter to bind two nations in 
[214] • 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

regard to any question, and the represen- 
tatives of each country are obhged to be 
careful that they do not involve their 
government in a disadvantageous agree- 
ment. 

When the treaty has been finally draw^n 
up, the representatives of the two gov- 
ernments sign it in duplicate. Our copy 
of the treaty is then submitted to the 
President, and if he approves it he sends 
it to the Senate with a message stating 
his approval and asking that the Senate 
concur in what he has done. 

The treaty now enters upon its second 
stage, for the Senate is just as much a 
part of the treaty-making power as the 
President, and is equally responsible for 
the agreement to which the treaty will 
bind the United States. As soon as the 
treaty is received by the Senate, it is 
referred to the Committee on Foreign 
Relations. This committee then takes 
up the treaty, reads it and examines it 
with the utmost care, comparing it with 
[215] 



How Foreign Treaties are Made 

other treaties, weighing carefully every 
article in it, and if necessary, sending 
for the Secretary of State to explain it, 
and for all correspondence which there 
has been in regard to it. 

After the members of the committee 
have thus examined the treaty, they de- 
cide whether they shall report it favor- 
ably to the Senate or advise its rejection; 
or whether they shall advise that the 
Senate concur after making certain amend- 
ments or changes in the treaty which they 
propose. 

After the committee has reported the 
treaty, the Senate goes into secret session 
and takes it up for consideration. The 
reason for having the consideration of 
treaties in secret is a sound one, because 
the discussion is certain to involve, not 
only the interests of the United States 
and their policy toward other countries, 
but also much is sure to be said in regard 
to the country with which we are making 

the treaty. 

[216] 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

If the debates upon treaties were fully 
reported, as other debates are, it would 
either be impossible to have them dis- 
cussed freely, as they ought to be, or 
else we should run the risk of having 
many things said which might do a great 
deal of harm and affect unpleasantly our 
relations with other countries. 

It is true that a certain amount of what 
happens in executive sessions gets out, 
but this is of a general character and 
usually only a trifling portion of the 
discussion. Most of what has been said 
in secret session never gets out at all, and 
for the reasons just given it is well that 
it should not ; and it is also well that no 
full report of the debates should be made, 
as is done in the ordinary legislative ses- 
sions of the Senate. 

After the treaty, then, has been read 
in the Senate, it is fully discussed; and 
if amendments are desired they are 
offered and voted upon. When the 
discussion is concluded the question is 
[217] 



How Foreign Treaties are Made 

then put to the Senate in the language 
of the Constitution, ''Does the Senate 
advise and consent to the treaty? " 

In order that the treaty may pass, two 
thirds of the Senators present and voting 
must vote in favor of the treaty, and if 
more than one third of the Senators vote 
against it, the treaty is rejected. If, 
however, two thirds of the Senators pres- 
ent vote for the treaty, it is ratified and 
is then returned to the President with 
information of what the Senate has done. 

If no amendments have been made 
the President proclaims the treaty, and 
it then becomes part of the law of the 
land, by which all American citizens are 
bound, as they are by their own Consti- 
tution and statutes. If, on the other 
hand, the Senate has made amendments, 
these amendments are then submitted to 
the representatives of the country with 
whom the treaty has been made. If 
they agree to them the treaty is pro- 
claimed. 

[218] 



By Henry Cabot Lodge 

If they do not agree to them further 
negotiations ensue, and an effort is made 
to arrange the differences. Sometimes 
when the President himself disapproves 
of the amendments made by the Senate, 
he refuses to proclaim the treaty, and in 
that case the treaty fails, for no treaty 
can become a law of the land until it has 
been proclaimed as such by the President 
after ratification by the Senate. 

Such is the process by which treaties 
are made, and it will be observed that 
owing to the provisions of the Constitu- 
tion every precaution is taken that the 
work shall be most carefully and thor- 
oughly done. This is as it should be, 
and shows the wisdom of the men who 
framed the Constitution, for nothing is 
more important than that a solemn agree- 
ment which is to become the law of the 
land, involving as it does the honor and 
the welfare of our country, should be as 
carefully entered into, as it must be 
sacredly observed. 

[219] 



,,,|WbU5INESS1^ 

[ m yoltn JCRicAaras 

* • ' *p/tAe UNITED STATES \ 




UNCLE SAM'S LAW 
BUSINESS 

BY JOHN K. RICHARDS 

SOLICITOR-GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES 

THE famous judiciary act of 1789, 
which organized the courts of the 
United States, provided in its last section 
that there should be appointed ' ' a meet 
person, learned in the law, to act as 
Attorney- General for the United States, 
whose duty it shall be to prosecute and 
conduct all suits in the Supreme Court 
in which the United States shall be con- 
cerned, and to give his advice and opin- 
ion upon questions of law when required 
by the President of the United States, 
or when requested by the heads of any 
[223] 



Uncle Sam's Law Business 

of the departments, touching any matters 
that may concern their departments. " 

The same act divided the United States 
into thirteen districts, and provided for a 
United States attorney in each district, 
but gave the Attorney- General no con- 
trol over the district attorneys. This 
control was not given until 1861. No 
department was created, but simply an 
office; and this was the situation until 
1870, when Congress created the Depart- 
ment of Justice. 

Although the organization of the courts 
was one of the earliest things taken up 
by the First Congress, the judiciary act 
was not passed and approved by Presi- 
dent Washington until September 24th. 
In the meantime Congress had provided 
for three Cabinet officers, a Secretary for 
the Department of Foreign Affairs, now 
called the Secretary of State, a Secretary 
for the Department of War, now called 
the Secretary of War, and a Secretary of 
the Treasury; so the Attorney- General 
[224] 



By John K, Richards 

was the fourth Cabinet officer created. 
Fourth in date of creation, the Attorney- 
General is fourth in Cabinet rank and 
fourth in the Cabinet hne of succession to 
the presidency, as defined by the act of 
January 19, 1886. 

The salary provided for the first Attor- 
ney-General was fifteen hundred dollars a 
year. That would be a moderate fee now 
for arguing a single case in the Supreme 
Court. But the act which fixed that sal- 
ary provided also that the United States 
District Judge for Massachusetts should 
get only twelve hundred dollars a year, 
for New York fifteen hundred dollars, 
and for Pennsylvania sixteen hundred 
dollars. 

Still it was a serious task for a Cabinet 
officer to support his position on fifteen 
hundred dollars a year even in those days. 
It was expected he would eke out his 
salary by outside work. 

What a belittling business this was 
appears in a note in which Edmund Ran- 



Uncle Sara's Law Business 

dolph, Washington's first Attorney-Gen- 
eral, unbosomed himself to his most 
intimate friend in 1790 : 

** With every frugality, almost border- 
ing on meanness, I cannot live upon it 
as it now stands. ... I am a sort of 
mongrel between the State and the 
United States ; called an officer of some 
rank under the latter, and yet thrust out 
to get a livelihood in the former — per- 
haps in a petty mayor's or county court. 
... I am ready to be confined to the 
Federal service, how extensive soever: 
though, by the way, I do more in that 
way with my own hands than one of the 
departments with its clerks. ' ' 

Edmund Randolph was the first of a 
long line of learned lawyers and able ad- 
vocates who have filled the office of At- 
torney-General. In the one hundred and 
thirteen years of our national life, forty- 
five men have occupied the place. Six 
States have furnished twenty-nine of 
them, Pennsylvania leading with seven, 
[226] 



By John K, Richards 

Massachusetts and Maryland following 
with five each, while Virginia, Kentucky, 
and Ohio have each supplied four, — an- 
other proof, Pennsylvania would say, of 
the predominance of the proverbial 
''Philadelphia lawyer.'* 

Up to the time of the Civil War the 
Attorney- General himself practically did 
the work of the office. He was allowed 
a clerk and a messenger. In 1859, for 
the first time, an assistant Attorney-Gen- 
eral was provided. 

The Attorneys- General of antebellum 
days won their laurels in the Supreme 
Court as orators and advocates. Some 
of them passed from the bar to the 
bench. One — Roger Taney — became 
Chief Justice. To select any of those 
great lawyers for special mention seems 
almost invidious. But they have all 
passed away, and a word about one or 
two may not be uninteresting. 

William Pinkney was one of Madison's 
Attorneys-General. He was a pictur- 
[227] 



Uncle Sajji's Law Business 

esqiie figure. He had served abroad on 
a diplomatic mission, and returned with 
all the foreign polish of that day. He 
was a great orator, with a highly culti- 
vated style. Justice Story said of him : 
" He possesses, beyond any man I ever 
saw, the power of elegant and illustra- 
tive amplification ; ' ' while Chief Justice 
Taney remarks in his memoirs: "I have 
heard almost all the great advocates of 
the United States, both of the past and 
present generations, but I have seen none 
equal to Pinkney. ' ' 

Taney thought Pinkney 's defect was 
his over- artificial manner. "But," said 
he, '" a man who at the age of fifty spoke 
in amber-colored doeskin gloves could 
hardly be expected to have a taste for 
simple and natural elocution. His man- 
ner was dressed up, overdressed, like his 
person. ' ' 

Keferring to the fact that Pinkney left 
no enduring memorial of his greatness, 
Taney said : * ' He loved honors and dis- 
[228] 



By John K, Richards 

tinction and contended for them, and 
maintained them after they were acquired 
with unwearied energy. But I am in- 
cHned to think he sought and loved them 
chiefly for the present pleasure they gave 
him. ... I think he would not have 
bartered a present enjoyment for a niche 
in the temple of fame. He was willing 
to toil for the former, but made no effort 
to leave any memorial of his greatness 
behind him," 

William Wirt was another noted At- 
torney-General. He held the office for 
twelve years — longer than any one else. 
He was associated with Webster in the 
great case of Gibbons vs, Ogden, which 
grew out of an attempt by the State of 
New York to grant to Fulton and Liv- 
ingston the exclusive right to navigate 
the waters of that State with steamboats. 
Webster and Wirt contended that Con- 
gress had exclusive power to regulate 
commerce among the several States, and 
that this grant violated that power. 
[229] 



Uncle Sam's Law Business 

The court held with them in an opinion 
of wonderful power and clearness, written 
by the great chief justice, John Marshall. 
Wirt, writing to a friend in 1824, said: 

* ' About to-morrow a week will come on the 
great steamboat question from New York. 
Emmett and Oakley on one side, Webster and 
myself on the other. Come down and hear it. 
. . . Webster is as ambitious as Caesar. He 
will not be outdone by any man, if it is within 
the compass of his power to avoid it. It will 
be a combat worth witnessing. I have the last 
speech and have yet to study the cause; but I 
know the facts and have only to weave the 
argument. ' ' 

The law business of the government 
increased with rapid strides during and 
after the Civil War. The need of an 
organized force, with a responsible head, 
was seriously felt. Accordingly, in 1870, 
the Department of Justice was created, 
with the Attorney- General at its head. 
The first register of the department, pub- 
lished in 1874, shows a force of forty-five. 
[ 230 ] 



By John K, Richards 

Since then the force has increased four- 
fold, more than one hundred and eighty 
persons being now employed in Washing- 
ton alone. 

The Attorney- General is the Cabinet 
officer of the department, and the part 
he plays in the administration equals in 
importance that taken by any of his 
distinguished associates. On some ques- 
tion touching the power and duty of the 
executive under the Constitution and the 
laws, a personal expression of his views 
is almost daily sought by the President. 

Some one is said to have remarked that 
all a President has to do is to execute 
the laws. Quite true. But what are 
these laws? What do they mean? What 
do they require or authorize the President 
to do? These are questions the Attor- 
ney-General must daily answer. 

A distinguished Attorney- General, who 

afterwards became Secretary of State, has 

the credit of saying that the place of 

power in an administration is not that 

[231] 



Uncle Sara's Law Business 

of Secretary of State, but of Attorney- 
General. This is a government of law, 
and the man who determines what the 
law is and how it shall be enforced wields 
a power hard to estimate or realize. 

To provide the machinery for adminis- 
tering justice. Federal judges, attorneys, 
and marshals must be provided. The 
United States with its Territories, conti- 
nental and insular, constitutes a vast 
empire, as John Marshall used to say. 
Many officers are required, and all must 
be honest, capable, and courageous men. 
Respect for Federal law and authority, 
the preservation of peace and good order, 
rests largely with them. 

Their selection is a serious responsi- 
bility of which the Attorney- General 
must bear his share. He consults with 
Senators and Representatives, hears all 
who are interested, and gives the Presi- 
dent the benefit of his best judgment. 
Naturally his advice has great weight. 

But his responsibility does not end 
[232] 



By John K. Richards 

here. He must not only get good men ; 
he must see that they stay good. He 
must keep an eye on them and their 
work. The Attorney- General does this 
through the medium of a special force 
of examiners, shrewd, competent, trust- 
worthy men, who travel from district to 
district, examining, inspecting, and re- 
porting. They are the eyes of the 
Attorney- General. They go everywhere, 
and what they observe is reported with- 
out fear or favor. 

In handling the matter of pardons, the 
Attorney- General is assisted by a pardon 
attorney. Every application goes to him. 
He first secures a report from the district 
attorney and trial judge. An unfavor- 
able report from them is seldom disre- 
garded. 

Then he makes an abstract of the facts 
presented, and lays the application be- 
fore the Attorney- General, who transmits 
it to the President with a recommenda- 
tion for or against the pardon. An ad- 
[233] 



Uncle Sanies Law Business 

verse recommendation here is usually 
conclusive. 

The work I have alluded to is so exact- 
ing that the Attorney- General has no 
time now, as he had formerly, to take 
personal charge of the government cases 
in the Supreme Court. He does occa- 
sionally argue some great constitutional 
question in which the administration is 
deeply concerned. But the act organ- 
izing the department in 1870 created a 
new officer, the solicitor-general, next in 
rank to the Attorney- General, who takes 
charge of the cases of the government in 
the Supreme Court, and acts as its repre- 
sentative there. 

All the cases go to him. After ascer- 
taining whether or not the Attorney- 
General wishes to argue any, and after 
laying aside such as he desires to argue 
himself, the solicitor-general assigns the 
others to the assistant attorneys-general 
for preparation and argument. 

There are five assistant attorneys-gen- 
[234] 



By John K. Richards 

eral, who devote themselves chiefly to 
court work. Two of them are intimately 
associated with the Attorney- General and 
the solicitor-general in the discharge of 
their duties. They assist the Attorney- 
General in the conduct of correspondence 
and the preparation of opinions, and aid 
the solicitor- general in the argument of 
cases of general interest in the Supreme 
Court. 

Naturally, their work becomes special- 
ized. One has usually argued customs, 
Chinese exclusion, and prize cases, while 
the other has been given criminal, inters 
nal revenue, and interstate coiumercg 
caseSc 

The United States cannot be sued save 
by its consent. Congress has therefore 
provided special tribunals for settling dis- 
puted claims against the government.. 
The great court of this class is the Court: 
of Claims at Washington. There is also 
a Court of Private Land Claims, which 
sits at Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Phoe- 
[235] 



Uncle Sam^s Law Business 

nix, Arizona, and passes on the validity 
of Spanish and Mexican titles in those 
ten-itories. Recently the Spanish Treaty 
Claims Commission was organized to hear 
and determine claims growing out of the 
Spanish- American War. 

Many millions of dollars are involved 
in the cases pending in these tribunals. 
For each of them the department has a 
special force of trained lawyers to protect 
the interests of the government. 

An assistant attorney-general, with 
seven assistant attorneys, defends all 
claims before the Court of Claims, ex- 
cept Indian depredation claims, which 
are taken care of by another assistant 
attorney-general, with some five assist- 
ants. An assistant attorney-general, with 
a special force of attorneys and exami- 
ners, defends claims before the Spanish 
Treaty Claims Commission, while a United 
States attorney, with special assistants, 
skilled in the Spanish law, presents the 
government's side in the Court of Private 
[236] 



By John K. Richards 

Land Claims. Cases coining from these 
special tribunals to the Supreme Court 
are usually argued by the government 
counsel who had charge of the case 
below. 

Following an immemorial custom, the 
Supreme Court accords special recogni- 
tion to the counsel of the government. 
At the opening of the court seats are 
reserved at the counsel's table in the cen- 
ter of the bar for the Attorney- General, 
the solicitor-general, and the assistant 
attorneys-general. When the time comes 
for hearing motions, the chief justice 
turns first to the solicitor-general, who 
always presents the government's mo- 
tions. Naturally, the government's rep- 
resentatives are expected to be dressed in 
a quiet, dignified way. I can fancy the 
thrill of horror which would run along 
the bench if one of them should arise in 
a light suit, with a ' ' loud ' ' tie. 

For the purpose of handling current 
matters with despatch nearly every de- 
[237] 



Uncle Sam^s Law Business 

partment has a trained lawyer, who is a 
member of the Department of Justice, 
but who does his work in the department 
to which he is detailed. Thus there is 
an assistant attorney-general for the Inte- 
rior Department, an assistant attorney- 
general for the Post-Office Department, 
a solicitor of the Treasury, and a solicitor 
for the Department of State. Each of 
these becomes an expert in the law of 
the department to which he is assigned. 

Especially exacting is the work of the 
assistant attorney-general for the Interior 
Department. This department has charge 
of patents, pensions, and public lands, 
and probably furnishes more law business 
than any other. Twenty assistant attor- 
neys are required to aid this assistant 
attorney- general in his work. The soli- 
citor of the Treasury looks after frauds 
upon the customs revenue, and has 
charge of the collection and compromise 
of debts due the United States and con- 
trol of suits respecting national banks. 
[238] 



By John K, Richards 

The seal of the department contains 
the Latin inscription, " Qui Pro Domina 
Justitia Sequitur.^'* It is said the use of 
this was suggested to Attorney- General 
Black by the following passage in Lord 
Coke's Institutes: 

" And I well remember when the Lord Treas- 
urer Burleigh told Queen Elizabeth, ' Madame, 
here is your attorney -general (I being sent for), 
qui pro domina regina sequitur} she said she 
would have the form of the records altered ; for 
it should be attomatus generalis qui pro domina 
veritate sequitur. 

Black adopted the Latin phrase used 
by Burleigh, substituting justitia for 
regina. 



[239] 



THE AMERICAN POST OFFICE 

BY W.l^. WILSON 
E,X'' Postmaster General. 










!!,uj: , iLiiJJjUPjiiy Minn ;i-.,: 







M 



1«J 



Post-Office Department Building 



THE 
AMEEICAN POST OFFICE 

BY W. L. WILSON 

EX-POSTMASTER-GENERAL 

IN the office of the Postmaster- General 
hangs a Httle chart giving the postal 
statistics of the United States for each 
year since the beginning of the govern- 
ment. 

From this chart it appears that in 
1790, the first full year of Washington's 
administration, there were seventy-five 
post offices and eighteen hundred and 
seventy-five miles of post routes. The 
gross revenue was thirty-five thousand 
nine hundred and thirty-three dollars, 
[243] 



The American Post Office 

and gross expenditure, thirty-two thou- 
sand one hundred and forty dollars. In 
1895 there were seventy thousand and 
sixty-four post offices, nearly half a 
million miles of post routes, a gross 
revenue, in round numbers, of seventy- 
seven million dollars, and a gross expendi- 
ture — not including the earnings of the 
subsidized Pacific railroads — of nearly 
eighty-seven millions. 

As an example of the salaries, it may 
be stated that for the year ending with 
October, 1791, the receipts of the post 
office at Worcester, Mass., were fifty- 
eight dollars, of which one dollar was 
allowed for incidental expenses, thirteen 
dollars for the compensation of the post- 
master, and forty-four dollars were turned 
in as surplus revenue. In 1895 the 
amount paid to postmasters was over 
sixteen million dollars. 

Between these two dates there is a 
development whose recital forms the 
most marvelous and romantic chapter 
[244] 



By W, L. mison 

of our history. For while the population 
of the country has increased less than 
twentyfold, the number of post offices 
has increased nearly a thousand fold, and 
receipts and expenditures have increased 
more than two thousand fold. 

The gross revenues of the post office at 
Pueblo, Col., or Battle Creek, Mich., or 
Fitchburg, Mass., are now larger than 
the postal revenues of the entire country 
in the first year of the administration of 
Washington. In that year five hundred 
thousand pieces of mail matter were 
handled; now over five billion pieces, or 
an increase of ten thousand fold. 

But there was an American postal sys- 
tem prior to the year 1790. True, there 
was no general post office in England for 
half a century after the first settlers came 
to Jamestown, and for nearly a half-cen- 
tury after that was established the few 
post offices in America were under the 
patronage of their respective colonies. 

But on the " seaventeenth of ffebruary, 
[245] 



The American Post Office 

1691-2," William and Mary granted by- 
letters patent to Thomas Neale power 
and authority "to erect within every or 
any the Chief Ports of the severall 
Iselands, Plantacions, or Colonies in 
America, an Office or Offices for receiv- 
ing and dispatching away of letters or 
packquetts. ' ' The rates of postage were 
to be the same as those prescribed by the 
act of Charles II, "or such other rates 
as the Planters or others will freely give. ' ' 

Under this patent Andrew Hamilton 
was appointed Postmaster- General of 
America, and was successful in securing 
concessions from the separate colonies. 
He established a weekly post from Ports- 
mouth, N.H., southward all the way to 
Virginia; but in doing this he necessarily 
ran into debt, for it seems that the ex- 
penses of the first four years were about 
five thousand dollars annually, while the 
revenue was less than two thousand dol- 
lars. 

In 1707 the crown brought back the 
[246 J 



By rr. L, Wikon 

Neale patent, and in 1710 Parliament 
erected a post office for America, with 
New York as the center of operations, 
and prescribed rates of postage, with 
summary process for their collection. It 
may be of interest to note that Virginia, 
where the parUamentary post office was 
introduced in 1718, at first resisted, for 
' ' the people " — as reported by Spots- 
wood — "called the rates of postage a 
tax, and believed that Parliament could 
not lay any tax on them without the 
consent of their General Assembly. ' ' 

This feeling soon passed away, for 
when Franklin, in his examination before 
Parliament in 1766, was asked by those 
who were assuming to justify the stamp 
tax upon America, ** Is not the post 
office, which they have long received, a 
tax as well as a regulation ? " he an- 
swered, **No; the money paid for the 
postage on a letter is not of the nature 
of a tax. It is merely a quantum meruit 
for a service done. No person is com- 
[247] 



The American Post Office 

pellable to pay the money if he does not 
chuse to receive the service. ' ' Frankhn 
was then Deputy Postmaster- General of 
North America. 

From the purchase of the Neale patent 
until 1775 postmasters were appointed 
from London, the best known among 
them being Spotswood of Virginia and 
Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was ap- 
pointed postmaster at Philadelphia in 
1737 by Colonel Spotswood, late Gov- 
ernor of Virginia, and then Postmaster- 
General. 

* ' I accepted it, ' ' Franklin said, ' * gladly, 
and found it of great advantage; for 
though the salary was small, it facilitated 
the correspondence with my newspaper, 
increased the number demanded as well 
as the advertisements to be inserted, so 
that it came to afford me a considerable 
income. 

The following is from an advertise- 
ment issued by him on October 17, 

1737: 

[ 248 ] 



By W, L, mison 

The post office is established at Benjamin 
Franklin's, Market Street, and Henry Pratt is 
appointed carrier for all stations between Phil- 
adelphia and Newport, in Virginia. He sets 
out about the beginning of each month, and re- 
turns at the end of twenty-four days. Private 
individuals, merchants, and others, can be sure 
that he will carefully transport their letters, 
execute faithfully their commissions, having de- 
posited good security therefor with the Honor- 
able Col. Spotswood, Postmaster-General of all 
His Majesty's Possessions in America. 

Franklin was postmaster at Philadelphia 
from 1737 until he became Postmaster- 
General for the Northern Division in 
1753, in association with William Hunter 
for the Southern Division, who had been 
a printer and postmaster at Williamsburg, 
Va. Franklin was Postmaster-General 
for twenty-one years, for a large part of 
which time, however, he was out of the 
country. He was removed in 1774, as 
he says, ''by a freak of ministers. " 

In 1772 the London authorities sent 
/ [249] 



The American Post Office 

Hugh Finlay to America to report on the 
posts. The hbrary of the Post- Office 
Department possesses the original manu- 
script journal of Finlay, neatly bound in 
parchment, and written with an accuracy 
and even artistic finish of handwriting and 
illustration, which show Mr. Finlay to 
have been an intelligent, careful, and 
painstaking business man. His title-page 
is: 

Journal Kept by Hugh Finlay, Surveyor of 
the Post Roads On the Continent of North 
America During His Survey of the Post Offices 
Between Falmouth in Casco Bay in the Province 
of Massachusetts and Savannah in Georgia ; Be- 
gun the 13th Septr. 1773 & Ended 26th June 
1774. 

This volume seems to be as complete a 
picture of the postal service of the Ameri- 
can colonies as an intelligent inspector 
could give. It is kept in the form of a 
diary, in which he describes his journey 
from office to office, with such notes upon 
postal routes and schedules as he deemed 
[250] 



By W. L. Wilson 

necessary for the information of the home 
department, together with reports upon 
the efficiency of each* postmaster, the 
revenues of his office, and the settlement 
of accounts which he made with him. 

An extract or two from this journal 
may not be out of place. Finlay first 
went to Canada, and explored the coun- 
try from Quebec to Falmouth, three 
hundred and ten miles, with reference to 
opening a post route through it. On the 
21st of October, 1773, he begins his ex- 
amination of post offices at Falmouth as 
follows : 

Mr. Child, the deputy there, represents that 
no allowance has been made to him in lieu of the 
liberty of franking which w£is taken from him, 
and he got the promise of an equivalent, — he 
says that he advis'd the late Comptroller that 
he valued his postage at 40 sh. p. ann. 

He fui-ther represents that the employment is 

very troublesome to him, and of no manner of 

advantage, nay, that it is a loss to him, for he 

cannot withstand the earnest solicitations of in- 

[251] 



The American Post Office 

digent people who have letters by the post, he 
delivers them, and never receives payment. 

Every person who looks for a letter or a news 
paper freely entei-s his house, be it post day or 
not ; he cannot aiford to set apart a room in his 
house as an office ; — he is continually disturbed 
in his family, he therefore begs that some other 
person may be appointed in his stead, unless an 
office is allow 'd him. 

At Portsmouth, N. H. , Eleazer Russell 
was postmaster. Finlay says : 

His office is small and looks mean, his books 
are in good form and up to this day; he is a 
careful regular officer, he understands his busi- 
ness and seems to have the interest of the office 
at heart. 

He continues : 

One Stavers some years ago began to drive a 
stage coach between Portsmouth and Boston: 
his drivers hurt the office very much by carrying 
letters, and they were so artful that the post 
Master could not detect them ; It was therefore 
Judged proper to take this Man into the pay 
of the office, and to give two mails weekly be- 
tween Boston & Portsmouth. This was of no 
[ 252 ] 



By TT, L. Wilson 

disadvantage to the Post Office because the mails 
brought by the stage coach did rather more than 
pay £10 Str., Stavers's yearly Salary. 

Salem, October 11th. Edward Norice, 
Depy., of whom Finlay says : " His 
books were not in good order, he follows 
the form, but they are dirty and not 
brought up regularly ; he understands the 
business of a deputy. The office is kept 
in a small, mean-looking place. ' ' 

He teaches writing. He has no commission 
to act, he took charge of the office at the death 
of his Father ; he reports that every other day 
the stage coach goes for Boston, the drivers take 
many letters, so that but few are forwarded by 
Post to or from his office. If an information 
were lodged (but an informer would get tar'd 
Sz Feather' d) no Jury would find the fact. It 
is deemed necessary, to hinder all acts of Parlia- 
ment from taking effect in America — they are, 
they say, to be govern 'd by Laws of their own 
framing, and no other. 

Finlay makes an elaborate report upon 
the Boston office, giving the number of 
[253] 



The American Post Office 

mails with the schedule of their arrival 
and departure. 

Peter Mumford's ride from Boston to New 
Port is 80 miles passing thro' Providence War- 
ren & Bristol, for which service he is obliged to 
keep three horses, & is paid £40 Str. p. ann : 
He avers that he is an expeditious rider and faith- 
ful to the office ; publick report is against him ; 
it is said that he carrys more letters for his own 
Private profit, than are sent from all the offices 
he stops at, to the office at Boston. He trans- 
acts a great deal of business on the road, loads 
his carriage wt. bundles, buys and sells on com- 
mission, and inshort but carrys the mail by the 
by as it helps to defray his expences. 

Proceeding southward, Finlay reached 
''Charles Town" in South Carolina on 
the 14th of December ; and thence by 
land and water to Savannah, where he 
finds the postmasters also complaining of 
the riders : 

One Mackenfuss rides between Charles Town, 
and St. Augustine in East Florida ; after the 
arrival of the packet boats in Charles Town he 
[254] 



By W. L. Wilson 

sets out with the Mail for Savannah, Sunbury & 
St. Augustine and returns. This trip he takes 
twelve times in the year. On one of those trips 
he fell sick, and employed a man to ride for him, 
this man came to the office drunk, he delivered 
about 50 loose letters to Mr. Thompson, — the 
next day he returned to the office and demanded 
the letters as his own perquisite, saying that it 
had been the former practice & that he had been 
instructed to follow it. Thus was Mackenfuss 
charg'd with an unwarrantable practise, but when 
he was question 'd on this matter, he denied that 
he had ever taken any money in this way. 

Finlay recommends the establishment 
of a weekly post between Charleston and 
Savannah : 

Now if a weekly post were here Established, 
it wou'd be proper to advertise it in the London 
Papers for sometime, and in the Carolina, 
Georgia & Florida Coffee houses to make the 
publick and especially the London Merchants 
trading to these parts acquainted with the 
despatch with which their letters can be con- 
veyed from Charles Town to all parts Southward. 
[255] 



The American Post Office 

The schedule from Charleston, S.C., to 
Suffolk, in Virginia, a distance of four 
hundred and thirty-three miles, covered 
twenty-seven days, an average of sixteen 
miles a day ; letters lying by sixteen days 
at different offices on the route. 

From so thorough a report as that 
made by Finlay, there is no doubt that 
the London authorities would have been 
able to make many improvements in the 
mail service for the colonies, but the 
colonies were then preparing for inde- 
pendence, and would no longer tolerate a 
post office under British control. 

The Continental Congress as early as 
July, 1775, — a year before the Declara- 
tion of Independence, — assumed control 
of the postal service of the colonies, and 
appointed Benjamin Franklin Postmas- 
ter-General for the purpose of running a 
line of posts from Falmouth or Portland, 
in Maine, to Savannah in Georgia, with 
as many cross posts as he might see fit. 
Franklin's son-in-law, Richard Bache, 
[256] 



By W, L. IVilson 

was the deputy, and was chosen Post- 
master-General on November 7, 1776, 
owing to the absence of FrankHn. 

I have before me a copy of Frankhn's 
/'tables of the port of all single letters 
carried by post in the Northern District 
of North America as established by Con- 
gress, 1775." Postage is rated in penny- 
weights and grains of silver at threepence 
sterling for each pennyweight. The 
Northern District extended from Fal- 
mouth, in Casco Bay, to Suffolk, in Vir- 
ginia. These tables show the rate on a 
single letter as follows : 

For any distance not exceeding sixty 
miles, one pennyweight and eight grains ; 
over sixty and not exceeding one hundred, 
two pennyweights ; upward of one hun- 
dred and not exceeding two hundred, two 
pennyweights and sixteen grains; upward 
of two hundred and not exceeding three 
hundred, three pennyweights and eight 
grains. And so on, sixteen grains' ad- 
vance for every hundred miles. By these 
[257] 



The American Post Office 

rates, postage on a single sheet from Bos- 
ton to New York was three pennyweights 
and eight grains, which made ten pence 
sterhng, or twenty cents in our money. 

Richard Bache served as Postmaster- 
General until January 28, 1782, when 
Ebenezer Hazard was appointed in his 
place. Hazard had been deputy post- 
master at New York under Franklin, and 
in a memorial to Congress in November, 
1776, prayed for an increase of his com- 
pensation as such, declaring that he was 
not able to employ an assistant ; that he 
' ' was obliged to leave the city of New 
York to keep near the headquarters of 
the army, who are almost the only per- 
sons for whom letters come now by 
post." 

He recites the extraordinary expenses, 
difficulties, and fatigues to which he was 
subjected by the frequent removal of the 
army; and his having been obliged for 
want of a horse, which could not be pro- 
cured, to follow the army from place to 
[ 258 ] 



By W, L. Wilson 

place on foot, apparently with his post- 
office in a knapsack carried by a servant. 

Samuel Osgood, of Massachusetts, was 
the first Postmaster- General under Wash- 
ington, and a copy of his first report, 
dated December 9, 1789, two months 
after his appointment, is now among the 
archives of the department. 

The growth of the American postal 
system from this time to the introduction 
of railroads, nearly fifty years, which may 
be called the stagecoach era, fully kept 
pace with the growth of the country, and 
it may be interesting to note, in these 
days of large postal deficits, that from 
1789 to 1834 there were only eleven 
years in which the Post- Office Depart- 
ment did not turn in some surplus to the 
Treasury. 

The mail originally was confined to 
letters, and not until 1792 were news- 
papers admitted by law, and then at the 
rate of one cent a paper for the first hun- 
dred miles, and a cent and a half for 
[ 259 ] 



Tlie American Post Office 

longer distances. At this rate the post- 
age on a daily paper, which was then 
generally a small four-page at the sub- 
scription price of eight dollars a year, 
would be four dollars and sixty-eight cents 
for any distance over a hundred miles. 

While there was a steady expansion of 
mail routes and mail facilities, and some 
improvement in connections and in speed 
of transmission, there was but slight re- 
duction in the rates of postage during the 
stagecoach era. Postage on a single let- 
ter was six and a quarter cents for thirty 
miles, increasing with the number of 
miles until it became twenty-five cents 
for all distances over four hundred miles : 
the same rate for every inclosure, no 
matter how small, and four times the 
rate if the letter weighed over one ounce. 

The late Secretary McCulloch, in his 
Memoirs, says that on most of the letters 
received prior to 1845 by the bank at 
Fort Wayne, Indiana, of which he was 
cashier, the postage was one dollar and 
[ 260 ] 



By JV, L, Wilson 

upward, which shows that the post office 
clerks were very careful in ascertaining 
how many pieces of paper constituted a 
letter, charging as much for an inclosed 
check as for the letter. 

To show what these rates then meant 
to the people of that part of the country, 
the following extract from a letter which 
I have received from Mr. W. H. Wal- 
lace, Sr., postmaster at Hammondsville, 
Ohio, — probably the oldest postmaster 
in point of service, having been connected 
with it since 1831, — may be of interest : 

On a letter that came four hundred miles and 
over I have taken from the farmer five dozen 
eggs, or four pounds of butter, or two bushels 
of oats, or two bushels of potatoes, or two-thirds 
of a bushel of wheat, and to pay for thii*ty-two 
such letters it would cost the price of a good 
milch cow. ' . . . I passed over the first thirteen 
miles of railroad built in the United States, — 
Baltimore & Ohio, — capacity of coach, twelve 
to fifteen persons ; motive power, two horses 
tandem ; rate of speed, ten miles an hour, 
[261] 



The American Post Office 

What a development of our postal fa- 
cilities has taken place during the official 
service of this venerable postmaster ! If 
foretold to the men who founded our 
government it would have seemed a story 
of miracles passing human belief. A few 
striking comparisons will bring this home 
to us. 

The entire revenue of the post office in 
the first year of Mr. Jefferson's adminis- 
tration would not now pay the salaries of 
one half the letter carriers in the city of 
Philadelphia alone. 

The net expenditures of the govern- 
ment in the last year of Mr. Monroe's 
administration fall more than a million 
short of the sum appropriated for the free 
delivery system of the year 1895. 

The average yearly revenues of the 
department in Mr. Lincoln's administra- 
tions were less than the present yearly 
pay of our letter carriers ; and the expen- 
ditures of the Post- Office' Department are 
now one and a half times greater than the 



By TT. L. Wilson 

cost of supporting the Federal govern- 
ment at the beginning of the Civil War. 

Of the two hundred thousand post 
offices listed in the Directory of the Uni- 
versal Union, which practically includes 
the postal system of the world, over 
seventy thousand are in this country. 

The Post-Office Department of the 
United States is to-day the largest busi- 
ness machine that has ever existed in the 
world, and is daily engaged in the strenuous 
task of keeping pace with and outstrip- 
ping the growth of our country and its 
quick adoption of all the forces of modern 
progress, whether material or social. 

It serves an exacting master, and is so 
anxious to merit the favor and confidence 
of that master that it is always on the 
strain to adopt every improvement and to 
welcome every device or innovation by 
which it can extend its facilities, quicken 
its deliveries, or make its service safer. 

To recite the successive steps of the 
progress of the Post-Office Department 
[263] 



TJic Aviericaii Foot Cjjice 

from a colonial system to a continental 
system, and from an American to a world- 
wide service, would be as full of interest 
and instruction as the most thrilling story. 

The letter whose transmission cost more 
than a dollar in the early forties will now 
travel with greatly increased speed and 
safety from Key West, Florida, to Ju- 
neau, Alaska, or froni any office in the 
United States to any office in Mexico or 
Canada, for two cents. Five cents will 
carry it as fast as steam cars and steam- 
ships can speed to any place in the civi- 
lized world. 

As the American post office bound the 
colonies together, years before they 
dreamed of any other bond of union, so 
the Postal Union to-day binds all the 
enlightened countries of all the continents 
in one great family. Its Universal Postal 
Congress, which meets once in five years, 
is a visible and potential realization of the 
poet's ''Parliament of man, the federa- 
tion of the world. ' ' 

[264] 



T b d M 46 




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UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA UBRARY 




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